


Vigilance, Victory, Sacrifice

by Glaucopis



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Banter, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Dragon Age Quest: Here Lies the Abyss, Enemies to friends to..., Humour, Introspection, LOTS of violence, M/M, Magic, Mention of Suicidal Ideation, Past Child Abuse, SO MUCH BANTER, Slow Burn, Swearing, Team Up, anderstair, animals killed in battle, corny action movie tropes, sacrificed warden, y'all know where this is going
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2018-08-29 23:31:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 60,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8509846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glaucopis/pseuds/Glaucopis
Summary: Corypheus' plan has set into motion: all over Thedas, the Grey Wardens start hearing the Calling. That includes Alistair, the King of Ferelden, but also a certain runaway Apostate, still wanted for the attack on the Kirkwall Chantry, in hiding ever since he escaped the Free Marches.While the Inquisition leads the frontal assault in Orlais, fighting against Livius Erimond and Warden-Commander Clarel's corrupted forces, what could be happening to the still-rebuilding Wardens of Ferelden? Might Corypheus have plans for them as well, plans that only a King and a rebel Mage could overthrow? If only they managed to collaborate...   "The words," Alistair growled at him, tightening his hold on Anders' shirt, face only inches from his and eyes burning with spite, "Do you even remember them?"





	1. Prologue

 

 

 

Anders was elbows deep into a screaming, terrified woman, so he didn't really notice it, at first.

“Push,” he was shouting, feeling the small head twist between his bloody hands, “Come on, just one more!”

The girl grasped at the sheets and did as he asked: she wailed at the top of her lungs, giving it her best, most desperate effort. Her knuckles whitened around the clawed bedding until, suddenly, _it_ was halfway out, soft head touching the air for the first time. It roared instantly, like taken by an angry, unstoppable will to live. Anders carefully pulled it out for those last few inches as the mother whimpered, legs shaking uncontrollably, cheeks shining with tears and sweat. 

“It's a girl,” he said, breathless.

The mother covered her eyes with her hands and cried with joy, exhilarated laughter shaking her young, exhausted body. As he gently inspected the bloody, squealing little thing, Anders found her perfect, spry and alert and very, very noisy. A surge of triumph flooded his veins: no matter how many times he had done this before, the feeling of victory in holding a kicking, healthy baby was always overwhelming.

“You did great,” Anders said, pulling the babe up for the girl to see, “Look, she's beautiful.”

The girl laughed again, eyes glued to the crying little thing, face open wide with reverent joy, despite the pain.

“She really is,” she panted, smiling with her hair all stuck to her face, “So pretty.”

Anders cut the cord quickly and handed the baby to the old lady standing by him.

“Nice work, young man,” the woman said, patting at the newborn's head lightly with a fresh cloth, “That last part is always too hard on my old hands.” 

Anders smiled, still out of breath, and wiped off his own tears of effort and relief with his wrist, hoping that he hadn't painted his face with too much blood in the motion. He shot another look at the mother, making sure she was alright, and not just too imbued with emotion to show discomfort. The old woman had gotten the baby closer to her, and the girl was tugging at one of her daughter's tiny hands with one finger, looking exhausted, and ecstatic. The roaring in Anders' ears was starting to placate, and he breathed in deep. Enough self-congratulation: it was time to focus back to the afterbirth, still to deal with. 

That's when he started to notice it, and right after, it was all he could hear.

The room spun violently around him, and suddenly, Anders was crashing against the wall, staining it with his bloody hands. He heard someone shout, and then there was nothing.

 

 

The King was standing in his study, going over his letters with the Guard-Captain, when it hit him. Slow, at first, making him loose his train of thought, and he rubbed his eyes, squinting at the handwritten notes laid out on his desk. 

And then, all at once.

Alistair remembered asking Duncan, apprehension in his voice, soon after his Joining: 

_“How will I know if I am hearing it? If it's come for real?_ ”

Because even outside of the nightmares, he had already heard all sorts of whispering, of muttering at the back of his mind, and even, sometimes, a far-off melody, coming to him in bits and pieces, like a fisherman's song carrying over still waters. Duncan had simply smiled sadly at him, slowing down for Alistair to be able to catch up to him on the steep, rocky path they were walking. 

_“You'll know, boy,”_ he had said, patting him softly on the back before turning away to resume his climb.

At the time, Alistair had just stood there among the pine trees with soft rain hitting his face, squinting at Duncan's back in confusion as the Warden-Commander kept on walking. But he understood, now, why his elder had said that. 

Because now that he felt it, there was no mistaking it for anything else.

Alistair knocked over his inkwell as he tried to hang on to his desk, but he still fell to his knees, books and letters and quills tumbling right after him. Black ink seeped deep into the paper, and ran quickly all over, dripping thick on Alistair's hands and onto the ground. Meera was on him immediately.

“Your Grace!” she shouted, kneeling at his side.

Alistair felt her strong hand on his shoulder, and saw that his own knuckles were white, for how hard he had grasped back at the Captain's forearm.

“I'm hearing it,” he said, voice blank, deafened by the loud choir, unwavering, that was echoing relentlessly inside his head.

Meera looked at him, not understanding, and he could see all the fear and confusion in her black eyes. Closing his own, the King swallowed hard and said again:

“I'm hearing the Calling.”

 

 

 


	2. The Wanderer

 

 

Anders woke up to light shining bright through the window, and seagulls screaming hard and shrill. The gentle sea wind's whisper wasn't enough to cover the sound of the waves crashing against the cliff-side, but the music certainly was. 

He groaned wearily and rubbed his eyes. Those first moments right after waking up were some of the worst, the Calling coming to him slowly but inevitably, growing in volume until it was seated firmly at the back of his head, as usual.

Anders sighed and got up, squinting at the harsh sun-rays. He caught sight of his face in the small, polished copper mirror and Maker, he looked awful, with circles under his eyes so dark they looked blue. Not the best of ideas, for someone who healed for a living, to look like he had just stepped out of the grave himself...

He had better fix that mess, he thought, and so he washed himself with cold water from the basin, and sat down to brush his hair. It was full of knots and he battled with it hard to get it to comply. The comb had been a gift from one of his patients, a sturdy thing of blue-tinted oak-wood, and it did the work effectively, albeit painfully. When his hair was finally smooth, he braided it like always, simple and long between his shoulders. Out of the way, so he could work in peace. Although, it wasn't really the usual work he was going to do that day, was it?

He sighed again, and checked the state of his beard with his fingers. He had been traveling for a few days, before arriving in the isolated village, so it was in need of a good trim. He got to it with his small scissors, the ones he used to cut linen bandages. He'd remember to wash them thoroughly right after: Anders never loved joking around with unsanitary equipment. 

When he was done with that too, Anders looked at the hair he had cut and saw that some of it was gray. He had noticed it before, how he had started to go lighter, especially around the temples. A little soon for his taste, if he had to be honest, but then again, that was just how nature worked, wasn't it? 

_“You'll get hair like a mouse, if there's clutter in your house”_ , he remembered his mother saying lightly, as she picked up some misplaced tool from the ground. 

He may have lacked a home, Anders thought, but his life was full of clutter all the same.

Pushing the tiresome thought away, Anders got up to finish preparing. He made his bag, swiped the room, opened the bed, and looked one last time from the window to the white cliff and the light green sea below. 

He was going to miss that view.

When Anders got down, the old lady was mixing rosemary, elfroot and sage in a big pot of boiling water. The smell of the mixture filled the kitchen, and Anders breathed it in deep. Inherently beneficial, it reminded him of cold weather and fireplaces, but also of rocky paths under the beating sun, where the herbs grew dry and strong.

“You're finally up,” the old woman said, without even turning around.

“Yes, Nan Olga,” Anders replied.

“And already ready to leave,” she added, blowing on the wooden spoon before tasting her infusion.

He nodded, and she finally turned around. Her pale eyes were squinting at him, inquisitive. Anders left his bag at the bottom of the stairs and crossed his hands in front of him.

“How are the girls, today?” he asked.

“Fine,” she answered, turning back to the fire, “Barne's brother is with them. You better go and bid them farewell, before you leave.”

“I will,” Anders lied.

Nan Olga removed her pot from the fire and shuffled precariously to lay it down on the table.

“Thank you again for your hospitality,” he added, refraining the impulse of moving in to help her, knowing full well that she'd probably just swat his hands away with a scowl, “And sorry, for the trouble I've caused you.”

The old woman sat the pot down and covered it with a heavy lid, before walking up to him.

“It's not everyday that you see such a grown man faint over such little blood,” she said, raising her eyebrows.

She had ragged him so much for it, Anders couldn't help but smile, but said nothing. Nan Olga squinted at him again, like she had been doing constantly, ever since he arrived: like he was some sort of puzzle she was trying very hard to figure out.

“Well,” she finally said, “ I hope you travel well. Even without that ugly hole in the sky, the roads have been even less safe than usual, lately.”

“Thank you, Nan,” Anders said, picking up his heavy bag and securing it to his shoulders.

The old lady took one of the many bag's straps and started to tie it around his waist with fingers much more steady than she would like to complain.

“Mycah,” she said, and Anders made the usual, deliberate effort to react to the name, “You know you'd be welcome to stay, don't you? We could use a man such as you, around these parts.”

Anders had finished his own knot, and so he started on another.

“A man such as me?” he repeated, with some amusement in his voice, and she shot him a look.

“One who wouldn't normally faint from such an easy delivery,” she scoffed, before adding, voice low, “One with... useful talents.”

They stared at each other and he could see the knowledge in her old eyes, the understanding. 

After he had blacked out, Anders had woken up in Nan Olga's spare bed, carried there by a few village men, no doubt. Barne, already up and walking, had sent him apples from her backyard tree, a whole basket of them, which had been sitting on his bedside table when he had come to his senses. Before that, he had no memory. Who knew what he could have said, or done, while unconscious? It wouldn't have been the first time his magic had seeped out against his will, even if, after all these years, such occurrences had become exceedingly rare. Or maybe, a certain someone, always eager to manifest as soon as his mental state was somewhat altered, had decided to show himself... Either way, the old lady had done the math. She probably thought he was just some Circle rebel, but she knew all the same.

They were done harnessing the heavy bag to his chest, and Anders sighed. He thought of the gulls and the sea and the sparse, small houses built with white rock from the cliff, scattered all over the hills. It would really be a peaceful life there, healing work wounds and milking sheep and walking everyday to the beach to gather spindle-weed and black lotus.

But Anders also heard the Calling, drumming softly in his ears, and so he just smiled gently.

“Thank you, Nan,” he said, meaning it, “But I must be on my way.”

“Very well,” she said with a little shrug, turning away and going to open her door, “But do come visit us, if you pass through here again.”

She picked up his walking staff from the wall and handed it to him, with another pointed look. There it was, Anders realized: she must have seen the cut.

He had been as discreet as possible, but a trained eye could still spot the incision in the wood where Anders had slipped in a runed shard as focus for his magic. When he had arrived, rushing in after the villager who had led him to help Barne, Anders had thrown the stick carelessly on the table. The girl's screams had echoed throughout the hills for miles, so he had ran to her side with little care for introductions, much less precautions. Nan Olga had picked the staff up, and left it waiting for him by the door. And somewhere down that line, she must have seen enough to understand that he was no simple itinerant healer...

With a nod, Anders took the staff the woman was handing him, and walked out, turning to wave her goodbye one last time. The small old lady stood on her doorstep, watching him leave, with those witty eyes of hers still fixed on him. She would remember him, that was for sure. But would she tell, if asked? That was another question entirely, and Anders wasn't too worried about the answer. 

After all, no Templar could chase him, where he was going.

Anders climbed the hill and soon passed the crossing to Barne's house, ignoring her way. One was never too careful. The old midwife might have understood enough to stay silent, but for the new mother and daughter, knowing a fugitive like himself could only mean trouble. He wished the girl well, nonetheless, with her bright eyes and long hair and hard, earth-working hands. He hoped the babe would grew up as healthy and strong as her mother.

The wind had picked up some, tugging at his hair and coat. Anders took one long, last look at the white cliffs under the blue sky, and at Nan Olga's small house, before turning his back on the sea to start on the road North.

The way to Orzammar was long, and he did not know how much time he still had to get there. He may not have to go all the way to the Dwarven capital, if he found another entrance into the Deep Roads before, but he wasn't too convinced by the possibility. He knew that, despite the constant rumors, actual open entrances to the Spawn-ridden underground had become scarce. Also, the Dwarves were honor-bound to let him pass, once he told them why he was there. Nobles from the human cities, on the other hand, may not hold his Warden oath in as much esteem.

Anders soon reached his usual, comfortable walking pace, and was able to make a good distance before dusk started setting in. The naked coast hills gave in to a denser vegetation, tall woods already starting to appear here and there. The Brecilian forest wasn't far, after all. He barely met anyone on the road, other than a farmer driving his cart, and a boy herding sheep. This far South, there really wasn't much passage. Luckily, that also meant fewer Templars and Rebels, and other people capable of recognizing him. 

He had also encountered very few rifts in the Fade since he had left the Hinterlands. Anders figured maybe, so far from where the breach had been, the Veil had been less affected. Now that he was going back North, though, he would have to be careful to that too.

The sky was darkening fast and so he stopped for the night, a little away from the road, setting up his tent quickly. The weather was still somewhat warm, but humid, the promise of heavy, autumn rain already very close, he could feel it. Sitting by his fire once it took, Anders distractedly munched on one of Barne's apples, small and somewhat dry, but sweet all the same. He found himself dozing off pretty fast, despite the Calling nagging at him with its mellow, graceful harmonics. 

All things considered, it was surprisingly less invasive than Anders had anticipated. He could see how one could live their life for a few more months like this, without addressing it. Of course, that wasn't his plan, but still, at least it wasn't as meddlesome as he had feared.

Anders was thinking of going to sleep when suddenly, he felt _him_.

His magic flared, and he angrily set his jaw. Andraste's tits, the bastard was relentless. After all those weeks of hostile silence, the Mage had started to hope that maybe he had gotten the picture, but apparently, he had been wrong.

“Leave, Justice,” he said out loud, “You are not welcome.”

He had gone months without so much as feeling the spirit's presence. Anders shivered, suddenly feeling chilled down to the bones despite the gentle weather. He swallowed with some trouble, trying to push the emerging memories back to the corner of his mind, where they belonged. 

  


_The scratching burn of ashes in his lungs. Tears in Hawke's eyes, the ghost of his knuckles stamped hard against the side of his face. Smell of fire and charred flesh._

_“Just go,” his voice, his sweet voice, now broken and weak, telling him to “leave!”_

_“Leave, or I'll kill you myself.”_

_A dark, wooden hole, shaking in the storm, pain so sharp behind his eyes he felt his head was going to split. _/__

  


____

Anders let out a shaky breath and brushed a small strand of hair from his face. 

“What is it _now_ ,” he wondered, seeing as the presence didn't seem intent on fading, “More Breach upset?” 

Because of course, when the Veil had ripped, it hadn't gone unfelt doing so. Anders had been walking along the South side of Lake Lorelei, hoping to make his way out of the Frostbacks before the cold got too harsh, when it happened. One second, he was inspecting the thorny stem of some foreign weed, and the next, he'd found himself with an entire new landscape around him, in an entirely different time of day. It hadn't been pleasant. He understood Justice had taken over, but he didn't know for how long, nor for what purpose. Stunned, Anders had looked up at the sky and discovered in horror that it was torn open by that giant, green monstrosity. A gaping wound, it had seemed to him, an unnatural gash in the fabric of the world itself. 

Since then, though, he had barely even felt the Spirit's presence. For all intents and purposes, Justice had been laying low for the past four years, so it was all the more annoying that tonight, he was still there, not planning on leaving, bubbling up just behind the surface of Anders' mind despite his less than warm welcome.

“What do you want?” he asked again, angrily raising his voice this time.

He wasn't afraid to shout a little. Who was going to overhear him, anyway? He looked at his arm and saw the cracks starting to appear. The sight of them made his stomach churn.

“Whatever it is,” he went on, “you better spit it out quick. I don't know if you noticed, but neither you nor I are going to be around much longer.”

And there it was, his deep voice, coming out of him and ringing low in his mind at the same time:

_“You believe the Calling bids you reach the Deep Roads, to die fighting the Darkspawn like your Warden brethren.”_

Anders sat back against his bag, resting his shoulders on it and doing his best not to look too much at his crackled hands.

“Spot on, Your Rightfulness,” he said, feigning nonchalance.

Of course, he couldn't hide anything from Justice, especially not his fear, but he'd be damned if he was ever going to stop trying.

_“But the Calling you hear is a travesty,”_ the spirit added, and Anders' brows furrowed even deeper, _“A powerful entity is tampering with long forgotten magic, with the darkest of goals”._

The apostate looked, frowning, at the black sky above him, with embers from his campfire running up across it, towards the stars, to add specks of warm light to that cold multitude. 

A travesty? He was pretty certain that he was hearing the real thing. Was there even such a thing as a fake Calling?

“What are you talking about?” Anders asked, unsettled, sitting straighter.

_“The Fade shakes and tears and rattles with his intentions,”_ Justice kept going, _“He plans to command all Grey Wardens, using fear as his weapon, making them believe they are to die soon to bend their fragile will”._

Anders felt the impressions the spirit was sending him, even if he had the usual trouble understanding any of them. It was like a loss of balance, all around him, like missing a step on a familiar staircase. Or watching a pond empty out slowly but surely from an impossible, unexpected stream, only to leave mud and weeds and exposed, slimy rocks for fish to die on. There was a presence, too, a massive form that made Anders' Tainted blood tingle and resonate.

Was such a thing even possible? What manner of magic could accomplish what Justice was saying? To Anders' knowledge, there was no mage powerful enough to do something even remotely like this. One would need to manipulate the Taint, to some extent, to reach all Grey Wardens. The only thing able to do that, as far as he knew, was an Archdemon. But then again, Anders thought, if the rumors were true, a mage had been behind the explosion of the Conclave, and had caused the Breach: a deployment of power so insanely huge, he would never have thought it to be conceivable. And yet, there it had been, ripping the sky open and hurling out demons all over Thedas. Who was to say what was and wasn't possible, anymore? Not to mention, if the spirit said it was true, then there was a good chance that it was. Or that he believed it, at least. 

He had a little trouble with the whole lying thing, being Justice incarnate, and all. 

Despite his perplexity, at the bottom of his mind, Anders couldn't help but feel some form of relief. When he had woken up in Nan Olga's bed, and understood he was hearing the Calling, the news had not been exactly easy to take. Anders could hate himself all he wanted, and wished this and worst fates upon his person more than once, it still hadn't been simple to learn he was going to die that way, and soon. He had been quick enough to accept it, though, all things considered: what better fate for him than to disappear down the Deep Roads, unbeknownst to all those chasing him? He may not have lived with much of it, but he could at least die holding on to a shred of his honor, he had supposed. The irony of it all had not gone lost on him.

But now, of course, what Justice said changed everything.

“But how?” Anders asked, running a hand through his beard, staring at the fire, thinking, “Who could be powerful enough to be doing this, anyway?”

The spirit didn't answer for a while, thinking too, like looking for the right words.

_“We have met him before,”_ he finally said, _“In the Vimmark Mountains.”_

Ander's mouth went dry. The Grey Warden prison. Hawke's blood. The deafening voices.  
  
Warden-Commander Larius' rambling, echoing in those empty halls.

_“He calls, like an Old God,”_ the mad Warden had muttered, _“He mimics their cry.”_

“Corypheus,” Anders whispered, voice blank.

Fear seeped back into him at the memory of the creature. 

_“More than Darkspawn,“_ Larius had said, _“More than human. He thinks, he talks. He pierces the Veil.”_

“This is insane,” Anders mumbled, biting nervously at one of his nails, “Hawke killed him.”

_“His magic is powerful,”_ Justice replied, _“and his will wicked. I know not how, but I know it is him.”_

Anders rested back on his bag, stunned. If Corypheus was alive, and could reach all Wardens like he had reached Janeka and the others in the Vimmark, they were all in mortal danger.

He had to tell someone. But how?

The closest place from which to reach Warden presence had to be Denerim, but there was no way Anders was going to be able to set foot in the capital. Three steps inside the walls and he would be behind bars, or worse. He considered letting himself be captured, but they would never hear what he had to say, once he was imprisoned.  Trying to contact the Inquisition was far too risky, for the same reasons: if they chose to lock him up and gag him all the way to the pyre, then there would be nothing he could do... And Chantry-mandated as they were, the newcomers surely must have been hungering to do just that. It wasn't that he was so afraid of being executed - after all, he'd been walking towards Orzammar with the intention of ending his life - but he would be stupid to let himself be killed without first passing on such important knowledge.

He could probably try for the Hinterlands, but the idea had not yet even finished forming, that he already dismissed it. No, that wasn't an option. The war wast still raging on all around the Calenhad, so even admitting he slipped through Templar nets, there was no knowing if he would find anyone there to believe him, and much less help him. Given the uneven welcome the mages of Ferelden had given him until now, the chances were unsound, to say the least. 

There was no betting on trying to seek out some other Grey Wardens on his way either, to tell them directly: he hadn't met any for the four years he'd been on the road, so he doubted it would start happening now. No, to be sure Justice's warning was heeded, Anders had to go to a Grey Warden hold, one where he could find someone who would at least hear him out before calling the Chantry on him and offering his head in a bucket to the Inquisition as an gesture of peace between Mages and Templars.

Anders let out a disgruntled moan, as realization seeped in.

Of course, he knew someone. A someone who hadn't seen him in almost ten years, and who probably wished she had never rescued him from the Templars and submitted him to the Joining, he figured. But also, someone who had the Warden's interest as a priority, and means to investigate his claims. She had already faced off a sentient Darkspawn, in the form of the Architect. She even had knowledge of Justice, and the nature of his... _insight_ into the question. 

Who better, to take him seriously, than the Warden-Commander of Ferelden, Léonie Lellac herself? 

Anders sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. The idea of facing off his old friend in his current condition was absolutely unpalatable, but he knew that was his best shot at alerting the Wardens of the strange things going on. Justice stirred back inside him, like if he was content with his conclusion, and felt he had done his part, seeping back to the bottom of his mind. 

Anders stood up and killed his fire, before turning his face to the sky, watching the stars. Whatever relief he may have felt when Justice had told him the Calling was fake, was gone. This was even more problems.

The journey to Vigil's keep would take him weeks of dangerous, hidden travel through a war-scarred, rift-ridden Ferelden. And it would all be in vain, if Léonie decided to just fry his ass straight into the Void with one of her terrifying lightning spells, before he even had time to explain himself. 

But this, he knew, was more important than him. More important than everything.

_“Join us in the shadows where we stand, vigilant, ”_ he remembered Léonie saying, as he drank from the cup, blighted blood running tick down his throat, _“We carry the duty that cannot be forsworn.”_  
  
  
  
  



	3. The Warden King

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank my good friend cupofrenchtea for kindly lending me her Inquisitor for this fic, as my own is much less fun! Lots of love!

 

 

 

 

There really hadn't been that much commotion, at first.

As soon as the blow of understanding had somehow passed, and he had been able to get up, run a hand through his hair, realize there was ink all over it, cuss softly, and turn a sad smile to Meera's efforts not to show her tears, Alistair had calmly started putting order in his affairs. 

It was a pretty easy task, considering he had been spending the last ten years preparing for his Calling to come. The procedure had been set and laid out in front of him for a good while, now. Everyone at Court knew full well that his time would inevitably run out. Compared to some other Wardens, Alistair had been quite lucky already, truth be told.

Everything about it was as ready as could be, he felt. Relationships with foreign powers were good, or at least, as good as they could get. The Crown had managed to settle all the disputes in-between Fereldan nobility that these last, chaotic years of Blight and war and overall instability had inevitably created. All the ones that _could_ be settled, at least...

Turning the quill absent-mindedly between his fingers, Alistair let his eyes trail over the map of the Kingdom he'd been annotating earlier that morning, to affix to one of his various wills. His many footnotes told a story of long, arduous unrest: land quarrel, heritage trouble borne out of too many deaths, old resentments brought back to life and new ones brought out by adversity... There hadn't been a day, Alistair felt, that he had spent on the Throne without having to meet some Bann or Arl to convince them that, no, raging war on their neighbour wasn't more of a good idea now than it was before, just because the Blight was over. 

His eyes settled on Redcliffe, for a while. The name was spelled in tall, ochre letters, finely traced by the scribe's expert fingers as if to mimic the very shape of the crag that gave the land its name. 

Such weight could one single word carry...

Alistair shifted in his chair, with a light scoff at himself. There was no need to be so grim, was it? The Mage-Templar conflict was finally, _finally_ starting to run out of breath. Well, in Ferelden, at least, which was already big enough of a jurisdiction for him not to wish to appoint himself to any more than that. 

Still, it was hard to tear his gaze away from the borders of that whole accursed region, and the bloody history lying underneath. What a senseless debacle. After the mess with the Tevinter, Grand-Enchanter Fiona seemed to have understood how far the risks she had taken had brought her down the road of collateral damage, how close she had been to condemning them all while trying to save her flock. The thought saddened Alistair to no end: that the Mages had found themselves in need of going to such extents in order to find some hope of survival, that they had risked loosing it all. If only the Lords and Ladies of his court could have understood that a little sooner, and Emperess Celene, and Wynne, for all he had loved her, with her blasted opposition to Secession of the Circles from the Chantry. If they had, maybe none of that would have come to pass...

But Wynne was dead now, and so was the Divine, and now Lord Seeker Lucius Corin as well, and the Hinterlands were marred with the wounds of battle, deep-seated scars that would remain imprinted on those green hills forever, Alistair knew. Reminders, he hoped, for future generations. They could serve that purpose at least...

With a sigh, Alistair rubbed his eyes. Well, despite it all, they were starting to see the end of it now, thank the Maker. And for that, he knew, they all had to give a great deal of thanks to the Inquisition.

The Inquisition. That had been a surprise, to say the least. A good one, for once, although it may not have appeared as such right away. And one which seemed not to have yet exhausted its impact...

 

He was still in the middle of his preparations, when he had received their missive. Right when he felt he had started to see the end of them, too. It had been brought to him straight from Skyhold by a dwarven scout, and in other circumstances there might have been some humour in seeing the utterly quizzical look on his Royal Guards' faces as they escorted the young woman, chin held straight, up to the very last step of his throne because, as she'd insisted, “ _the Herald said “delivered personally._ ””

Alistair had sat by the fire, that night, holding the letter marked with the ancient eye-symbol, lost in deep thought. The small, slightly irregular lines of Inquisitor's Lavellan's handwriting had become so familiar, he could almost repeat them from memory, by now.

 _“Your Majesty,”_ the elf had written, _“We extend this short missive to you, with sincere concern for your health and well-being._

__

_Grey Wardens have started disappearing all over Thedas, and there is reason to suspect foul play in the matter. We still don't know everything, but we believe the Spawn Corypheus to be tampering with the Calling._

__

_The Inquisition's effort are focused on this urgent matter, and we will keep the Crown of Ferelden informed of any new development.”_

__

Then followed a big passage about his actions during the Blight, how incredible they were, in what high respect he was personally held by the Lady Inquisitor, something something, the whole deal. 

_“To the wisest I sang, to the wing'd cup-bearers of the tall sky-vaulting,”_ Lavellan quoted, quite surprisingly, given her Dalish birth, _“Whatever shall happen, your heroic deeds against the Blighted armies will never be forgotten, as well as my own, very personal gratitude and admiration.”_

When they had first met, in Redcliffe, young Inquisitor Lavellan hadn't found the occasion to show the full extent of the interest she harboured for Alistair's role in defeating the Archdemon, it appeared. But ever since then, she had been quite proficient in expressing it, and in quite minute detail, at that. Every missive seemed to be an excuse to go on about his and the rest of Cousland's party's implication in the Blight. It wasn't so bad, to be honest, especially the Cousland part: people seemed to mention him less and less as time passed, much to Alistair's grief. It was easier to remember the living than it was the dead, he supposed... Still, he had read some of the young woman's most lyrical prose to him, sometimes, walking in circles in front of the wall where he had mounted his shield. He would have laughed, and loved every minute of it, Alistair was sure.

Alistair lifted his gaze to Aedan's shield, just for a flash, before letting it slowly fall back to the blank page in front of him. His quill still hovered uselessly over it, and the ink on the point had gone dry once again.

Under the seal and signature of the Inquisitor, in their missive, there had been a few other notes, too. Some were written on separate pieces of parchment altogether. One was from Varric: after their “adventures” in Seheron – Alistair chased the thought away, throat clenching shut as the image of Maric - _his father_ came to him hard and unforgiving – him and the dwarf had kept little contact, but it was nice to read from him once in a while. His light prose always had a polished, pleasant flow to it. As was expected from Varric Tethras himself, Alistair guessed. 

_“Watch yourself, Your Majesty,”_ the author had written, _“There are bad things prowling about in the dark again. Don't let them catch your scent, if you can. I think we can all agree you've already seen more than your fair share of action.”_

Alistair wasn't sure what exactly Varric had meant, but then again, it seemed to him he rarely did. 

On another thin piece of paper, Commander Rutherford's writing had stood slanted, and elegant.

 _“I owe my life to you and the Hero,”_ he'd written, _“I will never forsake this debt.”_

And of course, good Chantry boy that he was, he had added: 

_“Though all before me is shadow, yet shall the Maker be my guide.”_

_“Yes, great help, that one has been,”_ Alistair remembered himself tiredly thinking as he flipped the letter back to the bottom of the stack, _“Feel free to tell to send me a raven too, next you hear from Him.”_

He'd blamed himself for the harshness of that thought, though. It wasn't Rutherford's fault Alistair had no faith. And with what the man had gone through, anyway, he would gladly have lent him his share of it. And speaking of faith... 

At the very end of the bundle, Leliana's writing had stood bold and concise, yet still imbued with so much grace. Alistair could see her in his mind clear as day, holding her quill lightly as if it were made of glass, and frowning hard at the parchment.

 _“Alistair,”_ she just said, _“don't do anything stupid. We are taking care of this. Just remain in Denerim and be safe, please.”_

Sitting in front of his fireplace, the King had rubbed his eyes, sighing at the thumping pain nested firmly behind them.

After that first, hideous onset, which had ripped through his mind like a blunt, rusty knife, the constant singing had become more tolerable, but it was always there, though, biting at the back of his mind like a starved wolf stalking its limping prey. It was exhausting, and distracting, and outright infuriating, but it was manageable.

“If I may, Your Grace,” Meera had suddenly asked, standing behind Alistair with her face hard and closed, “What are we going to do?”

Her voice was firm, with a small note of anger. The guard-captain wasn't exactly the coddling kind. She expected her King to act, and that was more than fine with him.

Alistair had folded the letter back between his hands, playing distractedly with the eye-seal, and said, staring at the fire:

“Something stupid, I suppose.”

 

His idea had not been received warmly by his Council, as anticipated. After the initial shock came the yelling, and after that, the bargaining. 

“We need to be sure,” Alistair had reiterated, after waiting patiently for everyone to finish loosing their collective wits.

“But why go in person?” Bann Elgida had sighed, fidgeting with the hem of her velvet dress, “Surely we could delegate this to someone else.”

“They will not speak with a mere representative of the Crown,” Alistair had patiently explained one more time, “It's not even granted that they'll speak to me, but we must try.”

Richemont had thrown his arms out in a gesture of capitulation, and Elgida had sighed, shaking her head in disbelief.

“They haven't answered our letters,” the King had insisted, “None of them, not even Wheissehaupt. Something is wrong, and we need to check what. Vigil's Keep is the closest Warden fortress. Let me take the Guard and go, and I'll try to find some answers. And if I don't get them, well...”

The elven Bann had made a gesture like to stop him from finishing, but the King did anyway, looking at them all, seated as they were around the big Council table.

“I am already dying,” he had said, “ What more could possibly happen to me?”

 

In his study, Alistair stared at the blank page. There was still light outside, a few last sun-rays lightly warming the fresh evening air before night started setting in. He lifted the quill, as one would take their breath in right before starting to speak, but once again, nothing came. Resignedly, Alistair put the quill down, for good, this time.

What _could_ he write, anyway? He had none of Varric's eloquence. _“Dear Zevran, I might be dying, come say farewell, maybe?”_

Hardly the statement.

With a sigh, Alistair leaned back on his chair. He stared around the room for a while, wondering when he had finally got used to it being so big. He lifted his eyes to Aedan's shield one more time, lingering on the many scratches denting off the deep blue paint on the un-burnt half of it.

“You can talk,” he murmured, “You never even said goodbye.”

Someone knocked on the door. The height and strength of the hits on the wooden surface left Alistair no doubt as to whom it was requesting entrance, and so he straightened up a bit in his chair, before answering.

“Come in, Captain,” he called, once he was ready, and Meera obliged right away.

“Your Majesty,” she greeted.

She walked up to him, tall grey helmet held at her side. 

“Preparations are done,” the Captain said, “The Guard's ready to move out.”

“Good,” Alistair nodded, “You've been fast.”

“The men are eager, Your Grace.”

Alistair had noticed. Once he had gotten the leave he needed from the Council, he had given Meera and her men the news right away, and the order to gear up. They had taken the information sternly, but Alistair had clearly been able to feel a slight tremble of anticipation go through them. He couldn't blame them: it had been a while since they had rode out together. 

“Well,” Alistair said, getting up, not ungratefully, from his desk, “That makes us all but ready, I suppose.”

He glanced at the blank page one last time, but quickly looked away. He'd find time for that later, he was sure. Right?

Right.

There was only one last thing left to do, then. 

 

Alistair left the Captain at the bottom of the Chamberlain's Tower, and climbed those long, winding stairs alone. When he reached the beautiful, red wooden door on the last floor, he stopped to check himself, running a hand through his short hair, straightening his doublet, and hoping he didn't look too tired. He wasn't ready to listen to another hour-long soliloquy about his un-kingly looks, like the last time he had come here.

The bard she had chosen to guard herself opened the door right after he had knocked.

“His Majesty, King Alistair Theirin, is here for you, My Lady,” she announced him.

“Of course he is,” her voice came from the back of the room, impatient, “Let him in, Diane.”

Alistair stepped in, smiling amiably at the bard who just stared back at him, impassible as always. 

Anora was sitting at her table, which was all but overflowing with parchment and books, as usual. The big window to her balcony was open, and the wind blew gently through the long, white draperies that framed it. Her gown was white too, and her hair looser than usual, half-undone over her shoulder, making her look like some fair apparition, straight from a love epic. 

How easy it was to forget Anora's spicy personality, when only looking at her.

“You have yet to explain to me, Your Majesty,” she began, not even moving her gaze from the letter she was reading, “what in the Maker's name is wrong with your understanding of our tax system.”

She had gotten older so fast, but had lost nothing of that cool, statuesque beauty of hers. Her eyes always had the colour – and unforgiving bite – of ice, as they darted up to inspect his figure from head to toe.

“What even are these numbers?” she added, sighing sharply, “Have you not heeded the warnings of the Warehouse's annual report?”

“Lady Mac Tir,” Alistair greeted her, bowing lightly, “How lovely to see you, as well.”

She didn't even deign picking up his irony.

“You'd think after ten years of reign, you'd have gotten the hang of it,” she simply went on, as if he hadn't said a thing, “But evidently, that's not the case. Poor Master Roderick is on the verge of a complete mental breakdown.”

“Anora,” Alistair said, moving closer, taking in the way the graying sky made all the light in the room appear silver, “I need to speak to you, of some important matter.”

“Really?” she sighed, finally putting down her paper and leaning back, “I figured you climbed all the way up here because you so loved the exercise.”

She gestured to the chair across from her, though, and the King sat down. He didn't really know how to preface this, he realized, and so he decided the best course of action was simply to go straight to the point.

“I need to leave Denerim,” he said, “and soon.”

“Is it because of the Calling?” she asked immediately, resting her chin on her hand.

He nodded. Of course she knew. There wasn't a single thing that could resist Anora Mac Tir's acute wits. She probably hadn't even needed to get the information from anyone, not that there were many who knew it. 

Whatever the news meant to her, though, she was concealing it perfectly. Alistair sighed, and simply stated, holding her blue gaze:

“I was wondering if you would accept the role of Regent.”

That got a little reaction from her, even if it was subtle and quickly masked. She sat straighter, smoothing a rolled-up letter against the glass of the table.

“Really?” she just asked, “Me, of all people?”

Alistair had fought long and hard to let Anora move as freely as she wanted throughout the country. If Eamon had had his way, the Lady would have spent the last ten years confined to her Denerim apartments. Some other nobles had wanted even worse, but Alistair couldn't accept that. Even right after his coronation, with the stunt she had pulled on Cousland and all the horror that had gone down after it, he could not stand to force the noblewoman to remain anywhere against her will. She still was her sister-in-law, after all, but more than that, she was the former Queen, and even back then, Alistair had known how much the people loved her, and how respected her role was. He hadn't needed Eamon to know it wouldn't have been a grievous mistake to let the vengeful anger of the Landsmeet do something irreversible to the capable leader who had shepherded the country soundly through many years of hard-won peace.

And of course, most of all, she was Loghain's daughter. And Alistair had been the one to kill him, right before her eyes. Every time she saw him, Anora saw her father's cold-blooded murderer. For all the hatred he had felt for Loghain, Alistair still didn't consider it fair that she had to stand his presence. Nor that she should have to pay for her father's crimes in the first place, when she had ultimately chosen to stand up against him, when she was most needed... 

So, as soon as the dust of the Tower-top Battle had settled, he had ordered she be set free -if one could call what he did back then “ordering.” Eamon had sorted out the details of it, of course, ensured she'd remain under surveillance. Anora had complied. She had complied to a lot, back then, with a meekness terribly unlike her, and her pale gaze held low. 

It hadn't lasted. Anora had done her fair bit of travelling in that time, Alistair knew, visiting the neighbouring countries and her ancestral home of Gwaren. He couldn't blame her for wanting to get away from Denerim, from all its ghosts, both living and dead: Maker knew, if Alistair had had the chance, he would have done exactly the same.

But one way or another, Anora had always found her way back to Fort Drakon. It seemed that she could not, despite all efforts, stay away from politics. 

In the Chamberlain's room, the Lady tilted her brow at him, as if to say “... and so?”

Over the years, Alistair had had his advisors send her a few, then more and more documents to consult on. He never sent her anything directly, of course, but he knew Anora had understood the King had something to do with all the times his Council had asked for her opinion on such and such matter. As time passed, she had become more and more present, once again, in the political sphere, and no one had found it in them to complain, really.

After all, Anora was ferociously competent. It was only expected that she would conquer her place back in the Crown's circle of influence. No one in his Council had dared to deny it, not even Eamon, especially after the few times she had single-handedly solved, overnight, a situation the Council had spent entire days arguing about. 

Alistair was content with the situation as it stood: Anora could do what she was better at, without having to meet him, and he could benefit, albeit indirectly, from her experience and advice. It was a fine arrangement.

But then, on one famed evening, Alistair had been in his room, going over a particularly difficult and technical harvest account sent to him by the head of the Bannorn's Grain Farmers' Lodge, when Meera had announced Lady Mac Tir at his door. Alistair had shot right up as Anora entered his personal chambers, head held high, barely glancing at him before crossing the room and sitting down at his personal desk, shooting a haughty look at his handwritten, messy notes.

“I thought you might need assistance with the report,” she had just said, picking a biscuit from his silver bowl without an ounce of shyness, and elegantly taking a small bite out of it, “I am sure you were banging your thick head on it.”

Alistair had stood silent a few seconds, hardly believing the sight of her sitting in his chair, and the fact that she had just addressed him, for the first time in more than four years. Anora had shot him an impatient look, though, and he had felt the faintest of warm smiles bloom on his lips, which he had kept as hidden as he could, pulling up a second chair for himself.

“Oh, and since we're here,” she had added, scowling at one of his confused annotations like it offended her personally, “if you could stop sending me those absurd peonies on my birthday every year, I would appreciate it. They make my nose itch.”

“Yes, My Lady,” he had simply said, sitting beside her, and she had kept him up until morning to work on the report, lecturing him until he could give anyone a complete rundown of the paramount importance of barley farming in Fereldan agriculture from  5:42 Exalted to modern times.

So, when she now asked why he would chose her, Alistair could only shrug. 

“Who else?” he said, but that wasn't enough, apparently, because she made a face, and so he added: “Because I trust you, Anora. I know you only have Ferelden's best interest at heart. Not to mention, you are technically still Queen.”

For good measure, he also jested:

“Also, Eamon is far too old.”

Anora got up, a bit fast, but still elegantly, crossing her arms in front of her.

“You really are a fool, Alistair,” she said, making her way to the window, “Even worse than your brother.” 

Looking out the large open glass door to the court below, she plainly added: 

“I could stab you in the back.”

Alistair snorted a little, sceptical.

“Could you really?” he asked, playing with the fringe of the delicate linen cloth decorating her table, “And who would support your claim?”

He sighed, though, and searched for her gaze again, before she could answer.

“Anora, let's not play games,” he said, much more seriously, “I know you don't want the throne. You said so yourself: too much blood has already been spilled for it.”

She pinched her mouth, and her long fingers tightened slightly around her elbows. 

“Yes,” she snorted, acerbic, “anyone else's, but your own.”

Alistair's look lost itself to the middle distance, for a moment.

“Maybe,” he said, softly, “I hope to correct that.”

He sat straighter, wiping his hand over his mouth, and sighed.

“About succession...” he started again.

She cut him off, making her way back to the table and lightly leaning on it.

“Oh, not to worry,” she said, “I followed your desperate efforts to find a line not too inbred to serve as next rulers. Of course, your own attempts at producing an heir have been... fruitless. I can easily imagine why.”

Sighing, she shot him a sharp, icy look, before turning her gaze away, gesturing at some invisible figure in the air.

“I guess you at least had power enough to pave the road for a peaceful Landsmeet,” she shrugged, “for lack of other... vigour.”

She had looked him up and down for that last, cruel stab. Alistair could have snapped back at her with a remark on her and Cailan's own lack of children, the rumours of her being barren, and of what that might have lead to, but he didn't. He didn't want to fight with her. What was the point of lashing at each other, especially for something that both made them suffer? And even if it was in her own convoluted way, Anora had just paid him a compliment, and that was an occasion rare enough that he could only gracefully accept it.

It was all true, anyway. Without any descendants for him to pass the throne on to, everyone and their mother among Fereldan nobility, quite literally, had legitimacy to the Crown. And it had been quite the feat to get that number down to something manageable for the next Landsmeet, because Maker, did they all seem to want it, despite all the garbage that the position entailed. Alistair would never understand them. Couldn't they see how rosy and well-rested their King always looked? Did they really find that responsibility enviable? Well, maybe that was simply another tell-tale sign of him being spectacularly unfit for command, and Alistair knew for a fact there were people who could have taken on that role with much more grace than he had. Strangely, though – Fergus Cousland always came to mind – those were not the people lining up for it the loudest... Teagan was always there, of course, but lately, with Eamon being sick, he had not been quite himself, had he? Despite being of blood with the royal line, Alistair was sure he did not want the throne. Nor that he had ever wanted it in the first place, really. But he would surely be there on that famed day, facing Fergus, being loud, and well, that was for the best, in the end. What was the point of even having a Landsmeet, if not for it to do exactly what it was meant to do, which was shouting loudly in an enclosed hall until some form of a decision was reached?

All the same, Alistair had undertaken to find a least a few viable options, before he left for the Deep Roads, and to prepare the field well enough for his successor, so that transition of power could happen smoothly. He had closed off some courses, dismissed more than a few claims, and outright denounced some really ill intentions - war with Orlais? Sure, how about they all swallowed a big fistful of nails? The result would be the same, and that idiot Arl Vernont was more than welcome to try and check for himself, with his royal blessing. With the help of a few reasonable allies, some nobles had been peacefully dissuaded. Many of them, Alistair knew, were really quite content to rule over their own lands, and only wanted to have a louder say in the way the country was run, which he was more than glad to concede, if it meant they would step down from actually trying to lash at each other's throats for the blasted chair. There was only to pray he had done a decent job of it, and that the Landsmeet would have all the means to pick up his slack, if needed. The Council was also strong and renewed, full of younger, vocal, competent advisors, in whose hands Alistair was was more than confident to leave the management of that whole affair. Alongside Anora, perhaps...

“I just hope I did enough,” Alistair simply said, looking up at her, feeling tired, all of the sudden, with the Calling mouthing celestially right by his ear.

Anora's mouth-line tightened just a little and she straightened up, going back to the window and looking out again for a few long, silent instants.

“We shall see,” she finally said, and Alistair sighed, relieved.

Good. Now, he could really leave.

“Thank you, My Lady,” he simply said, “Ferelden owes you, once again.”

He got up, flattened the creases of his vest, and made to take his leave, but she turned around, and he stopped to look at her one last time. The white drapes waved gently around her figure, pushed by the cool night wind that was already starting to pick up speed.

“So, this could be goodbye, then?” she asked, and silence hung heavy between the two of them for a few more long seconds, as Alistair lowered his gaze, not really knowing what to say.

“Maybe,” he finally sighed, “I suppose.”

Anora turned sharply back to the window.

“Good,” she said, before adding, just a little softer: “I suppose.”

“Alright,” Alistair said, as Diane already moved to open the door, “Take care of yourself, Anora.”

He was almost out, when she called out to him, still immobile, looking outside in the silver light of the cloudy twilight.

“I'll be keeping your chair warm for you, your Majesty.”

Alistair felt just the faintest of warm smiles on his lips, as he left the Lady's chambers.

 

 

The day of their departure, the streets were wet with rain. It had poured down the entire night, hitting relentlessly against the windows, knocking on the doors like so many little traveller's hands beckoning shelter, drenching the city streets and turning them to big rivers of that famed Denerim mud. Alistair and his Guard rode slowly, and reached the walls in silence, waiting patiently until the watchman at the gate saluted him and his men, and then gave the order to open the big wooden doors. It didn't rain any more, but everyone assured everyone it would again soon.

When he rode out the city, the open road lay empty in front of Alistair under a tall, gray sky. The hooves of his mount knocked heavy on the stone below, the wind was cool on his face and in his hair, and Alistair couldn't help but to feel a deep sense of release. 

Finally, he was back out there again. Even if the circumstances were dire, the simple fact of being back outside the walls of Denerim, with a purpose other than scratching paper, made him feel lighter, more focused. He breathed in the humid air eagerly, filling his lungs with the smell of dirt and wet wheat, feeling the creak of his saddle and the heat of his mount under him. Alistair eased into a long trot, picking up the pace fast and fluid, as the column advanced.

The horse had been a gift from Zevran, a beautiful Rialto mare, ghost grey and muscular. The assassin had brought her to Denerim himself for his twenty-fifth birthday, riding into the courtyard saddle-less and dismounting only to gracefully embrace him.

“She's a fine steed,” the elf had said, petting her large neck, “Fit for a King. Her name is Provola.”

“I don't know what to say, Zevran,” Alistair had told his friend, admiring her and her big, brown eyes, so alert and wise, “She is amazing.” 

He clearly remembered the fond smile they had exchanged, before he had added: “What does her name mean?”

The elf had nodded keenly, running a hand over the horse's short, soft hair.

“It is the name of an ancient Antivan hero,” he had said, quite solemnly, “chivalrous and potent.” 

Of course, it wasn't the name of an ancient Antivan hero, chivalrous and potent. It was the name of a cheese, but Alistair had only found out a few months later, when an ambassador from Antiva City had asked him in a fan-concealed chuckle why he had chosen such an original moniker for his horse. 

Zevran still laughed at the bare mention of it, apparently finding his own joke to be absolutely hilarious, and even if he would die before openly admitting as much to the elf, so did Alistair. Plus, he really liked cheese.

Clicking his tongue at Provola, the King slowed her pace down to a walk, looking back to see if Meera hadn't fallen too far behind. His Guard-Captain wasn't exactly a proficient rider, he had learned.

“Are you alright, back there, Captain?” he shouted at her, unable to conceal the smile the sight of her nervous look inspired him.

An elderly couple, walking to the side of the road, recognized him despite his riding gear, and Alistair waved at them, still smiling. They mirrored him, looking a little surprised. Fehron was the first of his Guard to catch up with him, and he looked as delighted to be outside as Alistair felt.

“We should probably cut her some slack, don't you believe?” the King asked his lieutenant, gathering his reins a little tighter.

The elf looked over his shoulder, then smiled at him.

“I suppose, Your Grace,” he said, shrugging innocently, “That would be the polite thing to do.”

They waited just a second, before spurring their horses as one, sending them at full gallop, chasing each other just outside the paved road for a while. Alistair was soon out of breath, finding he was grinning wider than he had in a long while. The elf was dastardly fast, always leaving him one length behind, and after a bit he just had to stop, before they really got too far from the others. As soon as Provola slowed down, Maud reached him, stopping her mount right beside his with her usual precision.

“Look at him go,” she said, squinting at Fehron's silhouette in the distance, “Do you think he'll stop before Vigil's Keep?”

Alistair laughed, and Maker, when was the last time that had happened?

“You're joking,” he said, shooting the fair-headed rogue a fake-serious look, “He's going to cross straight over to Ostwick, and I'm going to have to ask the Teyrn if he's seen my Guard-Lieutenant, and he'll have to say _“Oh, I don't know, let me ask my wife."”_

Maud snickered, shaking her pretty head.

“There's one diplomatic incident waiting to happen,” she giggled, but immediately stood a little straighter, as the Captain had finally arrived at their level.

“Pontalgi,” Alistair saluted, “How are you feeling?”

Meera disentangled her reins as best she could, as her mount shook his head, irritated at her ample gesturing. With as much dignity as she could muster, the soldier turned to her King.

“Fine,Your Majesty,” she said, “ If not a little rattled.”

Alistair smiled, looking over to the huge sweet-beets field to his left. Under the open sky, the Calling seemed almost subdued, like loosing itself in all that space, and the King breathed deeply again. The rest of his guard had caught up with them, all fifteen of the men and women Meera had personally hand-picked to accompany him. The page was still left blank on Alistair's desk, but his mind was drifting further and further from it, now.

“Come on,” the King said, spurring Provola forward, “Let's try to make a good distance before dark.”

 

 


	4. To Keep Vigil

 

 

 

 

“You cannot come through,” the guard said again, face closed and expressionless, standing straight in front of Anders, “Constable's orders.”

Anders was trying, _really trying_ , to remain as calm as possible, but this whole situation was starting to very seriously get on his nerves. 

He was exhausted from his long journey across Ferelden, having pushed through the night before to get to Amaranthine in the morning without further delay. He was dirty, aching, still somewhat wet from the rain that had come down during the night, his back was killing him, and he wanted nothing more than to find Léonie and be done with this, even if it meant getting mauled on sight by the Warden-Commander's magic as soon as he entered her area of effect. 

He certainly hadn't travelled this far only to get turned down at the Keep's gates.

“But I am a Warden,” Anders said again, a little louder, this time, “I know the Commander. Just let me speak to her, and she...”

The guard stepped forward, setting his shoulders and swelling his chest, making himself look taller as he loomed over him.

“I said: “ _no one_ ”,” he growled, and Anders held his gaze, feeling a too-familiar irritation creep up on him.

Anders didn't like it when people tried to intimidate him, especially if it was to make him comply, or shut his mouth. He really, really didn't. Using strength to silence people? To him, that was the mark of the weak.

What had Varric said to him, that one time?

_“Blondie, have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, you have a problem with authority?”_

“Listen, I don't want trouble,” Anders said, probably not very convincingly, given his dry tone,“I just have something to tell the Commander. It's important Warden business, something I couldn't reasonably share with a simple city guard.”

The man squinted at him, displeased, and apparently not planning on getting off his face. Anders breathed in deeply: he had to make an effort to remain calmer. Drawing attention to himself like this was unwise, he knew it: it would only inflate his chances of being recognized. So he sighed, and leaned back, trying to adopt a more complying stance. 

It didn't help that he had barely spoken more that two sentences to any soul in the past few days: lone traveller wasn't exactly the most social of occupations, so Ander's communication skills, in moments like these, often felt somewhat rusty.

“Can you just bring her a message?” he resorted to, trying to look at least a little contrite.

Then, setting his jaw, swallowing back his pride, he added: “Please?”

The guard looked at him for a long moment, then leaned back as well, still glaring at him a little, but nodding slightly.

“That, I can do,” he granted, “What should I say?”

Anders relaxed as well, breathing easier, and adjusted his bag on his shoulders. He thought about it for a moment: what could he say that he'd be sure would make his intention known to Léonie, and only to her? He remembered their conversations by the fire, her holding a glass of sweet-wine, him writing in his journal, with the cat purring softly on his lap. Anders and the Warden-Commander had spoken of Magic for many, long hours, during those rainy evenings in Vigil's Keep, and of the Circles as well. He had been so young, back then, so deprived of an outside view, he had drank in her wisdom with an unquenchable thirst, the books she had lent him, the passages of her favourite think-pieces she could quote from memory... 

Never would he have imagined how much he'd later disagree with her moderate views.

"Tell the Commander," Anders said, " _"The only path worth following is that which is led by the adamant hand of Justice."_ "

The guard looked a little lost for a second, but did his best to hide it.

"Fine," he sighed, like he was making an effort to be much more patient than Anders deserved, "And your name?"

“I'm Warden...” the mage started, but his voice trailed off, and he cussed internally: he couldn't very well give him his real name, could he?

He counted on Léonie to at least hear him out, even despite his crimes, but the Amaranthine city guard had no such obligations: Anders the Apostate would find himself gagged and locked in a cell before he even had time to say “fuck the Chantry”. But would the Commander take the time to receive some random, made-up Warden? Especially if, as he suspected, his message wasn't going to be relayed all that carefully...

The guard was looking at him intently, starting to squint harder, and Anders still hadn't said anything, which a this point was starting to get... suspicious, to say the least. His weariness made it hard for him to concentrate, so Anders stammered and settled for just blurting out the first name that came to his mind.

“Garrett,” he said, and he closed his eyes for just a second, biting his tongue and sighing sharply at himself.

How pathetic.

“Warden Mycah Garrett,” Anders repeated, collecting himself, because there was no going back, now.

He already had a pretend name for such occasions, hadn't he? But he apparently couldn't get a grip on himself, that day. However stupid, that would have to make do.

The guard looked satisfied with his own problem-solving, maybe even pleased with his little intimidation act, which made Anders want to smack him in the face with his staff, but he knew he had taken the right decision. Unpleasant, but efficient.

“I'll be back,” the man said, gesturing to a colleague that was spying on them from a distance, “I'll find you at the Crown and Lion.”

Anders watched him go confabulate with the other guard, and sighed one more time. He wasn't very fond of stopping in inns, but he didn't have much choice, did he?

Leaving the gates, Anders made his way back from the Keep's entrance to the center of the town. The sky had somewhat cleared out, and Amaranthine was buzzing with activity, shouts from the market-place carrying all the way over to the main street. He crossed the busy plaza again, as he had on his way up, breathing in the still-familiar scents of the city: fresh fish from the unruly Waking Sea, black bread from the shop just around the Smith's corner and of course, faint yet still recognizable, the salty breeze of the distant waves. 

So much time had passed since he'd been here, in the Arling of Amaranthine, Beacon on the Waking. The city hadn't changed much over the last years. Everything that had been destroyed during the Darkspawn attacks had been rebuilt long ago, now. Only a few spots of more recent construction on the solid West wall acted as reminders of the wounds of war. Anders wondered if Voldrik still worked there...

The Inn was just like he remembered it: nice in appearance, rotten in prices. 

Anders carefully peered in before entering: could it be that the inn-keep and his dwarven bartender still worked there, after ten years? On a normal day, he was not too scared of being recognized: his somewhat altered appearance had kept him out of arms way, so far. With his long hair and beard and worn travel clothes, he knew he looked like any other wanderer scouring the roads of Ferelden.

But even more than that, and to his surprise, Anders had found that generally, people seemed very little inclined to trust themselves on their memory or instincts, when it came to him. How many times had he seen some guard double-take at his face, only to shake his head and go past him like nothing had happened? It was crazy, really, but as long as he acted like he was in no way worried or misplaced, people tended to believe there was something wrong with them, rather than with him. 

Still, he also did his best to keep himself from potentially dangerous situations. No matter how confident he looked, if he strolled up to a Templar, they would know him instantly. That was why he had avoided the Pilgrim's path on his way to Amaranthine: it had taken him even longer to get there, but at least he had remained discreet.

Now that he was inside the walls, though, Anders knew full well that the passage of time over both his features and the city itself were the only, meagre protection standing between him and capture. He simply hoped they would prove enough for the short time he still needed to keep up with this mascarade...

There was no old inn-keep to recognize him, in the Crown and Lion, only two women in their thirties -maybe sisters?- that seemed to own the place. Anders booked a room, as small as possible. People tended to pay for his services in nature, rather than with coin, so his purse wasn't exactly full.

A lovely redhead showed him to the room and, soon after, brought him a basin of water. It was warm from the fire and Anders sank his hands in it with a sigh of satisfaction. 

He quickly cleaned himself, changed out of his damp clothes, brushed and shook his cloak from the window, and sat down on the thin bed, not bothering to unpack. Surely the guard would come back soon enough, to escort him to the fortress, where he'd deliver his message. 

And then, perhaps, it would all be over.

Anders waited the day, resting his tired legs, giving in to a few hours of light sleep. Part of him wanted to go out and visit the city, to pass the time and reminisce his stay there, but he knew it was better if he remained in his room, only going down to grab a piece to eat when dinner-time came. After all, those memories, in their own way, were just as dangerous as being found out, weren't they?

When night fell, Anders went to bed thinking all was somewhat under control: surely Léonie had told the guard to come for him in the morning. A favour for an old friend, perhaps: one last night of freedom before the long-delayed judgement...

Next morning passed, and still nothing. Anders spent some time on his journal, but that only kept him busy for a few hours. In the evening, he found himself thumping his foot up and down on the wooden floor, staring out the window with his chin in his hand. The sky was greying, promising rain for the night. When dusk came, he was pacing around his room, irritation starting to make him fidget. Truly, he couldn't help but think, if there was such a thing as fate, then it had a most peculiar sense of humour. After being on the run for almost five years, now that he surrendered, was no one going to show up to take him in? 

_“I guess I have simply gotten too good at this hiding business,”_ he thought, with a somehow bitter mirth.

The Calling, still very much there, was also a constant reminder of the urgency of his task. If no news came in the morrow, Anders decided while laying again on the hard hay mattress, he was going to have to go back there on his own.

When he woke up, rain was coming down heavy from an almost black sky, filling the air with so much humidity it was like breathing vapour.

 _“That's it,”_ he thought, when noon came and there was still no sign of the guard, _“I'm going in.”_

He didn't know exactly how he was going to manage that, but one thing was certain: one way or another, he was passing through those gates. He quickly packed back the little he'd gotten out of his bag, before going down to pay for his room. He gave the sisters their coin, pulled up his hood, and went out under the pouring water, making his way to Vigil's Keep. 

After a while, though, Anders started to notice some agitation in the the streets. People were walking over from the ramparts and huddling close to others, young and old, coming out of their houses despite the violent shower, and pressing themselves on the edge of their doorsteps in small, tight circles. 

“I heard there's some big brass knocking at the gates,” Anders heard one passer-by say to a merchant who was covering his goods up with heavy blanket, “with knights, and all.”

He was almost at the Keep when the city bells started ringing, and he knew something serious was happening, then. That sound could only mean one of two things: an attack, or someone really important had come to visit.

“Make way!” a loud female voice called out, all of the sudden, “Make way for the King!”

Anders heard the convoy come up the main street way before he saw it. Some twenty armoured soldiers on horses, wearing the Green Sun of Denerim's heraldry and the banner of the Royal Guard, rode their way up to the Keep's gates. The low thundering of their mounts' hooves echoed in-between the buildings, so loud it could be heard despite the roaring of the rain. In front of them all, leading the convoy, rode a tall man on a grey horse, wearing an ample rain-cloak, soaked through with water. The column stopped before the gates with a loud splosh of mud, and the man let down his hood, despite the heavy downpour. 

Even without the announcement, and regardless of the simple travel clothes he could make out under the cloak, Anders had no trouble knowing him: King Alistair's golden skin, strong jaw and light brown hair made for a fairly recognizable sight. Also, and although it was faint, Anders could feel the Taint inside himself ring low and deep: it resonated with the Darkspawn blood that ran though the man's veins. And that, well, that was a trait hard to fake.

A few guards had come up to stand before the newly-arrived, and Anders approached as well, curious to see what was going down.

The King tightened the hold on his reins, to keep his tired horse from stepping sideways, and blinked the rain out of his eyes.

“Good day,” he simply said to the soldiers, all but shouting to be heard clearly over the flooding water, “I must have word with the Warden-Commander.”

A guard, the same that had rebuked Anders before, he recognized, planted himself as straight as possible before the King, stiffly holding his spear to his side, and shouted back:

“Warden-Constable Maeva said we were not to let anyone in the Keep.”

The King looked to the rider closest to him, a woman so tall she had almost half a head on him, and his expression was perplexed, despite a small hint of amusement.

“Very well,” he replied, turning back to the man with a quizzical squint, “but this is the City Guard of Amaranthine, is it not? Under the Crown's authority, not the Warden's.”

The guard stammered, and the King pursued, not giving him time to gather himself.

“Soldier, let us though, and have no worries,” he said, “If the Constable has complaints, she can voice them directly to me.”

“Are you going to let your King stand waiting in the rain?” the tall woman barked, and the guard fell back, suddenly agitated.

“No, no,” he said, with some haste, signalling his colleagues, with a gesture of his hand, “Come in, please, Your Grace.” 

The King and his soldier exchanged another look, and Anders could see there was a faint smile on the man's lips. The Capital's men spread the word between themselves, riding in circles, calming their mounts, which had started stamping their hooves impatiently under the rain, while the guards hurried with the doors.

While they waited for the gates to open, Anders' mind was going a mile an hour.

What was he going to do? If he made himself known in order to pass, he seriously risked being recognized. On the other hand, he thought, watching the nervous wince on the city guard's face as he ordered his men around, would he ever get another chance at coming in like this? Clearly, the man had had no intention of looking for him at the Crown and Lion. And once he was inside the Keep, Anders would be under Warden authority. If the Royal escort wanted to apprehend him, they would have to defer to the Commander's decision, and until then, he'd have time to at least say something. 

Probably.

The large wooden doors had started moving, and Anders breathed in deep: it was now or never. The King looked almost the same as he did when they last had met, all those years ago in Kirkwall, but Anders didn't. He hoped that would be enough.

“Your Majesty,” he said loudly, coming closer.

He kept his head as low as possible, hoping his hood would somewhat conceal his features. As soon as he stepped forward, though, a Royal Guard immediately moved her horse in front of him, blocking his path, and so he had to stop.

“If I may, I wish to enter the Keep as well,” Anders went on, and he had no choice but to raise his face and hold the King's gaze, then, as the man scanned him from head to toe.

“As a fellow Warden, just arrived in town,” the mage added, keeping his expression neutral, like he had learned to do, “I too wish to confer with the Commander of the Grey.”

The King slightly cocked his head sideways for a few seconds, like he was focusing on something. Anders understood: he was feeling the Taint in him, as he, himself, had done before. A thin gold-band circled the man's brow in place of crown. 

Apparently satisfied with his findings, the King sat straighter on his saddle.

“Certainly,” he said, “I see no reason not to.”

The Royal Guard, a short, blonde-haired woman, took her horse back behind the formation, and Anders couldn't resist the temptation to shoot a smug look at the city guard. The man opened his mouth to say something, but bit it down, whatever it was. 

One had to grab at life's small satisfactions.

“What is your name, Brother?”

Anders realized King Alistair was still talking to him. The gates had opened and the party moved forward slowly, so he had no trouble following the grey horse's walking pace.

“Mycah Garrett, Your Majesty,” he answered, still doing his best not to look at him too straight, focusing instead on how deep his staff sunk in the mud in front of him.

The King shook his head with a little shrug of unfamiliarity.

“I don't believe we've met,” he said, with a somewhat pleasant tone, like he was simply happy to speak to a fellow Warden.

Anders nodded slowly, as if to say: “looks like it”, and didn't add anything.

They had reached the middle of the courtyard, and the gates closed behind them. Anders recognized the inside of the Keep, the place were Dworkin and Wade had stood, the Courtyard where they had pushed back the Mother's Darkspawn, Ser Pounce-a-lot's corner, the great wooden door of the inner gates... Maker, so little had changed. He could almost see Oghren and Nathaniel, exchanging jokes with their backs resting on the southern Wall, and the elegant flick of Léonie's robes as she walked from the smithy to the Main Hall...

Anders felt the King stop, and dismount right next to him. Uncomfortably close, if he had to be honest, so he scooted over a little, as a small party of Wardens approached them under the still-thundering rain. Anders sighed, resting his weight on the staff, as he waited. What point was there, in reminiscing? 

He was going to see them all very soon, anyway.

The Wardens -none of which he knew- showed them in, while two others helped the escort with the horses. Two Guards came with the King, the tall woman and a much smaller man, still wearing his hood. When he took it off, Anders saw he was an elf, with long black hair and a sharp look that he pointed straight at his face. The mage looked away and towards the entrance, avoiding that inquisitive gaze. 

 

 

Soon, they had been lead through Vigil's Keep great wooden hall - Anders' small table on the side was long gone - and were all standing in the Commander's study. The fire was roaring high behind her desk, bathing the room in yellow light, because the sky outside was so darkened with clouds, it looked like it wasn't even daytime, anymore. 

But there was no Commander in sight. 

“What do you mean, missing?” Anders asked in disbelief.

“What do you think I mean?” Maeva said, rubbing her forehead with the tips of her fingers like someone trying, and failing, to chase away a bad headache.

The Warden-Constable of Ferelden was a city elf with a thick Glamorian accent, and she sat at Léonie's desk with a tired, tense look to her round features. Anders had never seen nor heard of her, but honestly, why was he surprised? 

Part of him, he realized, had half-expected to find Nathaniel, in the seat. But so much time had passed, right? Almost ten years, now. How could he know what had happened, since he left? Maybe none of his former companions were even around, anymore. For all he knew, they could have all heard their Calling, already. 

The true one.

“How long?” the King asked, running a hand though his short hair, slicking it back so it was away from his furrowed brow, and the sound of his voice tore Anders from his grim ruminations.

What did it matter, anyway? As soon as he had said his share, he was done for, wasn't he? Was it not better, if none of his former companions were there to see him like this? As much as he'd like to, though, he couldn't help the cold hand of worry from worming its way into his guts. Léonie, missing? What could possibly have happened to her?

They had been relieved of their cloaks, but they were all still soaked. Ander's braid was wet too, clinging uncomfortably to the back of his neck, so he untied it and ruffled his fingers through the strands, hoping it would help his long hair dry in the heat of the fire.

“She's been gone for a few days, now,” the Constable sighed.

“Why haven't you sent word to Denerim?” the King asked, somewhat angrily, “We could have helped. I had to learn from the Inquisition that something unnatural was going on.”

They all had to speak louder than normal, because the rain was coming down so hard on the roof and windows, it filled every room with a constant low rumble they had to almost shout over.

Constable Maeva shot the King a hard look.

“Why would've we?” she asked, “This is Grey Warden business, not the Crown's.”

Feeling the sharpness in her tone, Anders thought it wise to keep the matter on subject: Léonie wasn't there, and the thought of her in danger made his stomach churn, but he still had his important message to pass on.

“Do you believe,” he began, “that Commander Lellac's disappearance has anything to do with the Calling?”

All gazes turned to him.

“So it _is true_ ,” the King said, crossing his arms, “We are all hearing it.”

There was maybe just an ounce of relief in his voice, and Anders could understand: it was one thing knowing it, but a whole different matter altogether to have it confirmed by another's experience. Only the Constable didn't look all too moved. Of course, Anders thought, she must have learned it instantly, with the others in the Keep. It was only the isolated Wardens, like him and the King, who had been alone with the certitude of their imminent end, and no idea how unnatural the phenomenon was.

“From what I have gathered through my... investigations,” Anders pursued, “There might be a link between this Calling and the Spawn Corypheus.”

The King nodded, raising his finger at him, like acknowledging the truth in his words. He looked deep in thought, like connecting in his head the pieces of a big puzzle.

“That's what Lavellan said. How did the Commander disappear?” he asked the Constable, “Could it be that the Elder One is involved?”

He made a vague gesture at the walls around him, making a few steps to the window.

“So many of your men are missing,” he added matter-of-factually, “Were they taken with her?”

Now that the King mentioned it, it was strange, indeed, and the odd feeling Anders had experienced since he had crossed the gate suddenly made a whole lot more sense: they had seen very little Wardens inside the Keep. Many of the positions on the ramparts and on the ground had been unmanned. Maybe that was why the gates had been closed, he realized. The Constable may not have wanted to show how weakened Vigil's Keep's force was.

“Where was she, when she disappeared? ” the King asked again, following his train of thought and circling back to the desk, addressing Maeva, “How fares your investigation of the...”

“Enough,” the Warden-Constable snapped, raising her hand, brutally cutting him off.

Everyone was far too taken aback to say something, apparently, because she moved on, uninterrupted.

“You seem to be under the impression that you have a voice in this,” she added, voice icy cold, “but Your Highness, there is no _“we”_.”

The King opened his mouth to say something, but she didn't let him.

“You are not a Grey Warden,” the elf declared sharply, “You have renounced that title, the moment you forsake your vows in exchange for political power. ”

The King's eyes went wide, and for a second, he looked like he had just been punched in the gut, but his jaw immediately went stiff and he swallowed, hard. A sudden, improbable red flush crept on his features, which he quickly concealed by lowering his head. Both his guard's gazes had hardened instantly, and they stepped forward, but when he raised his hand at them, they stopped like one.

“I... understand,” King Alistair said, low and forced, like he was holding back some venom in his mouth, “But I...”

His voice trailed off, so he loudly and angrily cleared his throat before straightening his back and staring down at the Constable, looking her straight in the eyes, recovering his composure.

“I only wish to help the Wardens,” he said coolly, face much harder than it had been before, “ Me and my men are here to cooperate.”

Anders's look went from him to the Constable, whose full lips were pinched in an expression of disdain.

He may not have frequented many Wardens over the years, but like everyone in Ferelden, Anders still knew of the divide the King's identity had caused in the Order's ranks, and everyone else's minds, really, for that matter. Some people considered his investiture and subsequent ruling as a part of his Warden duties, seeing how his title had been crucial in leading the united forces of Ferelden against the Archdemon, and how he had, ever since then, made use of his power to reinforce Warden presence in the country, assigning much more means to the Order than the previous administration had ever done. Others, like the Constable, apparently, saw only greed behind the decision, a ploy to restore power to the dying Theirin line, and pull some personal gain and profit out of the chaos of the Blight. After all, if his Duty was done, why not simply step off the Throne?

Ander's didn't really have an opinion, on the matter, nor did he really care. Especially not now, with a matter so urgent looming over them.

“Listen,” he said, “ Is now really the time for this discussion?”

The Constable shot him a sharp look, but sighed heavily, hanging her head low, both hands resting on the wood of the desk. 

“Of course not,” she said, “Apologies, Your Grace. It has been a hard few days.”

The King shifted his weight, and relaxed a little as well.

“No issue,” he answered sternly, “let's just move on.”

Constable Maeva seemed to agree with that notion. She pushed herself off the desk, and crossed her arms.

“We were actually about to leave,” she started, voice heavy with worry, “One expedition already left yesterday, to investigate on the place we think the Commander disappeared, but we've received no news from them since.”

She took out a map of the region from under a stash of papers, and showed them a spot on the coast. Maybe half a day away, if they spurred their horses.

“We could use the men,” she added, looking at the King, and he nodded.

“Of course,” he said, eyes still trailing over the map, “My Guard is ready as of now.”

“We were to leave at dawn,” Maeva said, rubbing her forehead again, scrunching up her brows in a cross expression, “I would have gone now, but to risk the night with the roads in this condition would be unwise.”

She was right, Anders thought: to travel by horse in a sea of mud, with such little visibility, was just asking for an accident that would inevitably happen and delay them. The King too seemed to agree too, because he made a noise of acknowledgement, straightening up, and the Constable started to the door, signalling them all to follow her.

“You can use all the space necessary to stay for the night,” she said, “It's not like we're using it.”

“Thank you,” Anders said.

The Constable turned to him, then, and as her eyes scanned his face – nice hazel eyes, she had – Anders held his back straighter, resting on his staff.

So, that was it, then. His run was over.

In a way, he could have been surprised at the rush of relief he felt wash over him, in that moment, but in another, he really, really wasn't. After all, it was more than time, wasn't it?

But, to his utmost confusion, that time didn't come.

The Constable's eyes simply glided over him, and she sighed heavily, standing by the door.

“No,” Maeva said, crossing her hands behind her back, “Thank you, Warden Garrett. And you, Your Grace.”

She nodded at the King, and prepared to take her leave.

“I will see you at dawn.”

 

 

Dawn came fast enough. 

King Alistair had left to confer with his men immediately after Constable Maeva's departure, still looking lost in deep thought, and so Anders had slipped away, wandering a little through the empty corridors, not really knowing where he was going. 

Sometimes, he found himself thinking while walking through the tall, silent hallways of the ancient Howe fortress, Anders really wished he believed in fate, because certainly the notion would leave him less confused as to why events always seemed to take such a puzzling turn, for him. 

Perhaps, if he did, he could believe he still had a role to play, in all of this, and that was the reason why Destiny had made it so that he wouldn't be recognized, that day. Perhaps, it had something to do with Léonie, with debt, and with Duties long forgotten coming back to knock on his door, after all this time. It would make sense, wouldn't it?

But Anders didn't believe in fate, and the truth was much less glamorous, of course. It was surely a combination of dumb luck, Maeva not knowing him, and everyone who might have, including the King, either not being there, being absent-minded, or simply believing no one in his position would be dumb enough to present oneself, face uncovered, in a place such as this, after years of evading capture without so much as a slip.

Anders thought he'd been walking casually, but really, who was he fooling? There was no believing it was mere chance that made him “stumble” upon his old room. It was a study now, Anders saw when he silently pushed the door open. Slowly, he made his way inside, and sat at the desk, looking around at the familiar walls, now plastered with maps. The cat had stayed in that corner, he remembered, and his books on that one. 

_“As good a place as any,”_ he thought, and he got up to light the fire, closing the door to hang his clothes to dry.

Laying down on a simple wool cover, in a room that used to be so familiar, Anders had found it hard to keep the memories at bay. One would think after years of keeping those to the side, he'd have them all but locked away, and yet... And yet, in that moment, staring at the grey stone ceiling, Anders saw them all as clearly as if they had never left. Nathaniel sitting on top of a parapet, re-tensing his bow and telling him tales of the city he knew so well, Velanna complaining about settled life, and leaving the Keep for days on end to sink back into her native Wending Wood, but always coming back, with a few dry herbs and a couple of recruits... Sigrun always joked about leaving the Keep to fulfil her legionnaire duties, despite Léonie's disapproval, so maybe she finally had. And Oghren, always ready to supply a crass joke, but steadily growing more and more akin to helping the Commander manage the forces... 

_“Stop,”_ Anders ordered himself, squeezing his eyes shut, as if it could somehow help him chase the images away, _“It's no use.”_

 _“Remnants of a time before,”_ Justice whispered in his ear, and honestly, Anders didn't find it in him to blame the Spirit for being stirred awake by the place they were in, _“Do you miss them?”_

Anders sighed sharply. As if he had any right to something like longing...

 _“Does it matter?”_ he asked, and the Spirit didn't really answer.

Rather, Justice sank back slowly to the place of silence he had relegated himself to, only taking the time to murmur softly:

_“I do.”_

Anders let out another long sigh, and resolutely turned to the side. _“And so what?”_ he wanted to spit back at him, _“I don't see how that would change anything.”_

But he didn't. Surely, tomorrow would find him caught, anyway, so in the meantime, wasn't it much wiser to simply sleep?

Lucky for him, a clear advantage of living on the run was that one learned, by force of both habit and circumstance, to fall asleep regardless of the situation. Anders made good use of that talent and let himself sink hard and fast into a deep, dream-less slumber.

So, despite everything, Anders felt much fresher, once out in the misty cold of the early morning. 

The rain had stopped, thankfully, but it had chilled the air quite a bit, leaving the ground soaked, and the wind humid. His breath came out of his mouth in big, white clouds. The horse they had lent him was warm, at least, and it blew mist through his nose as well, huffing and puffing, impatient to leave.

Anders looked at the other forces, which had regrouped around their respective leader. There were much more King's men than Wardens, because Constable Maeva's escort only counted three people. She probably had to leave a good portion of her remaining men to guard the Keep, Anders thought. Really, her numbers were tight. Once they were all ready and saddled-up, she was the one to gather her reins first, and move her horse to the center of the courtyard.

“Alright,” she shouted, to be heard by everyone around, “We move out!”

She led them out through the gates and out the still sleepy city of Amaranthine. 

Anders looked back one last time at its tall walls, before turning his back on it, and spurring his horse to keep the pace.

They rode hard, without stopping, making a straight line to their objective. The roads were, indeed, dangerously muddy, and he was glad they had the light of day with them, to see where they were going.

At some point along the journey, the elf Royal Guard who had accompanied the King in the Commander's study fell back from the front of the convoy, to ride beside Anders. He wore a small, round shield on his back, and just stared at his face for a while, until the mage sighed.

“Do you need something?” he asked the soldier.

The elf shook his head, not breaking eye-contact.

“I am just fascinated by your nose,” he said nonchalantly, “It's quite sharp and downwards.”

“Thank you,” Anders replied dryly, before adding, “If you want the same, I'm sure that can be arranged.”

The elf raised his eyebrows, before cracking a long, feline grin at him.

“Is that so?” he asked, and they kept staring at each other until a feminine voice came at them from the front.

“Lieutenant!”, the woman called, “Can you come back up here?”

“Duty calls,” the elf just sighed, still smiling as he pushed forward, distancing him with an impressive sprint.

Anders' eyes followed the elf as he rode up to the blonde girl that had kept him from approaching the King, the day before. Both went into a bout of animated conversation, before looking at him from above their shoulders. That was not good news, Anders knew, but what could he do about it? Rather than staring back, he pretended to gaze at the scenery instead. 

It was changing fast, as their convoy approached the Emerald Cliffs. Soon, the road became less and less flat, until they had to slow down to a trot, and then a walk. The uneven terrain somewhat broke the convoy up, as they had to climb up and down the calcareous rocky crevasses that littered the environment. After a while, Maeva signalled them all to stop on the flattest possible surface, and she dismounted, walking up to reach King Alistair.

“We should go on on foot,” she said, “We are close to the place the Commander was taken, but the terrain is even worse up front.”

The King nodded and gave his orders, and soon they were all walking, not without some difficulty, because many men and women were weighted down by some kind of armour. 

The King himself had discarded his travelling gear in favour of a knee-long reinforced doublet, that morning, and no cloak. Well cut, in a dark shade of blood red, the thing looked sturdy, yet comfortable enough to ride with. Anders thought it suited the man's large shoulders and tan skin, with its vertical lines and rich, rusty colour. The King himself looked... strangely at ease, despite the circumstances. His features were relaxed as he squinted at the white, cloudy sky, hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword, and his walk was long and supple, the step of a man who could walk much greater distances before getting winded. 

King Alistair, the Commoner King, and Hero of the Blight... Now that he saw him in the light of day, Anders actually found the man looking quite older than he had in Kirkwall. Maybe the neatly-trimmed beard had something to do with it, but his features looked sharper too, more angular, as if an air of maturity had settled onto them. He was... almost thirty, now, wasn't he? A young age that, even if it didn't excuse them, surely contributed to explaining the the immaturity of his politics...

Anders was staring, he realized, so he made an effort to look away. 

They were getting closer to the sea, he could could feel it, or better, he could smell it, salted and fresh somewhere in front of him. The King said a few more words to his guard-captain, and the woman fell back, reporting an order, probably.

“Well,” King Alistair said, “they haven't chosen their kidnap spot blindly.”

He had left his shield on his horse, as it was too big and heavy to carry, and instead just wore a bastard sword to his left hip, and a long dagger to the other. Anders had kept his staff, of course, and he used it to push himself up a steep rock.

“Why is that?” he inquired, breathing in the coastal air.

The King looked up at him, looking almost surprised, as if he had been thinking aloud, and didn't exactly expect him to reply. With a sigh, he straightened up, and made a gesture to the hills around them.

“I'd say, with this kind of jagged topography,” the King explained, pointing at how little around them they could see because of the rocks and crevasses, “It's the perfect place for an...”

He froze in place, and his eyes flew right open. Anders stopped, leaning on his staff.

“For a what?” he asked.

The King turned to look at Maeva, who was standing far from them, at the top of a big rock, and their eyes met for a few, long seconds. 

“For an ambush,” he finished, somber, as he raised his hand to the hilt of his sword.

Anders felt the familiar pang of magic on his neck, but it was too late.

“Watch out!” he heard the King shout, and suddenly his big body was in front of him, and the air crackled violently, like two spells colliding.

When Anders looked up, King Alistair's hand was still raised, and smoke was coming out of his gauntlet, unscathed. The wave of anti-magic that had emanated from him had snuffed the mage's own charge like a candle in the wind. Anders winced in pain: it still burned as hard as he remembered.

“You are a Templar!” he said, incredulous.

But the only answer he got was the King gripping his shoulder hard and pulling him to the ground with him. An arrow whistled furiously just above their heads. King Alistair elegantly landed on his knee, going for his sword at the same time, while Anders much less graciously fell right on his face.

“Maybe we can discuss this at a later time?”, the King said, unsheathing his sword, eyes scanning his surrounding until he found the archer, who was already tensing his string again.

Not waiting for Anders' answer, he lunged forward, making an impressive distance in a single push, and slashed at his enemy who hastily stepped backwards, letting go of his bow in favour of a sharp dagger. 

The air quickly filled up with shouts, clanks of metal against metal, whistles of arrows furiously crossing the air, and even some incantations, in a language Anders didn't instantly recognize.  It was a disorienting battle layout, wherein they could only hear other fighters and try to deduce their numbers, because they were so surrounded with rocks, there was no way the eye could embrace the whole field at once. 

The Apostate had not fought in what felt like a century, but he still remembered how.

Twirling his staff, Anders felt the hidden shard in it vibrate and heat up as his magic woke it up. The King had dispatched his opponent, but there was a woman running towards him now, spear pointed forward. It was one of Maeva's Wardens, and Anders felt his throat seal shut at the thought of what he was about to do. But he had no choice: there was a man coming up to him from the left, he saw him with the corner of his eye. 

If he didn't move quick, Anders was not going to be able to move, ever again.

“Dammit,” he cussed, and he released his power to throw an ice spell straight to the middle of the spear-woman's chest.

She froze up instantly, an expression of pained surprise sealed to her features, and The King turned to him for a second, before having to parry a mace hit with both his hands, just right of his leg.

The man running towards Anders let out a fierce cry as he swung his sword, but the mage deployed his barrier and blasted at the man with an arcane mind spell, sending him flying away and crashing on a rock.

“To the King!” he hear someone shout, and he recognized the tall woman Guard's voice.

King Alistair was a little too busy to turn in the direction of her cry, having just pushed back another heavy sling, to his face this time.

“Here, Captain!” he yelled, right before landing a violent kick to his opponent's belly, forcing him to bend in half.

With a grunt of effort, The King brought his sword down on him, and blood spurted everywhere as the blade cut the man deep and fatal. He re-positionned himself fast, looking around him, searching for his men, or his next target, Anders didn't quite know.

“Regroup the unit!” he called, signalling Anders to follow him closer, in the direction of the others, “Gather the formation! Fehron, were are you?”

There was battle all around them, and suddenly Anders heard it again, the foreign incantation, except this time it was close enough that he could make it out some of it. The words were Tevinter, but the force spell was familiar. He immediately recognized the weight of it on his shoulders: it was one of Hawke's favourite moves.

“A Gravitic ring!” he had time to shout, but it was already to late.

The crushing pressure took his entire body, shoving all the air out of his lungs and slowing him down to a painful, choking crawl. He saw the King bare his teeth, close his eyes and lunge forward at normal speed for a moment, before the spell sucked him right back in. He tried again, but he had run out of anti-magic, and could only wince in pain under the bruising hold of the hex. 

Anders' barrier shattered all at once and he felt the black cloud that had formed at the periphery of his vision swallow him up as all noise of the battle dissolved away into nothing.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally some action! Thank you for your support, kudos and comments!


	5. Captives

 

 

The slow drum of the Calling dragged Anders to consciousness with its sweet and unrelenting notes, bringing him back to his senses slowly, sluggishly. He felt cramped and confused, and it took him a little while before he was able to assess his surroundings.

The first thing he acknowledged was the dark all around him, damp and smelling of mold. 

Then came a faint orange light right in front of him, and black, vertical stripes running across it -like metal bars? 

Third came the cold, from his open shirt, hanging untied and baring his chest to the humid atmosphere.

The fourth was, of course, that he was in a cell. 

Anders blinked repeatedly, wanting to get up, but feeling a rush of distress flood his veins the moment he realized he couldn't move. His back was to a damp wall, and his arms were imprisoned behind him in a painful, tight contraption he couldn't even twist enough to see. It felt metal, and magic at the same time. Tentatively, swallowing down the knot of panic that threatened to choke his throat from the feeling of being restrained in such a vulnerable position, with his arms pulled tight behind his back by the unknown bond, Anders tugged at it firmly, to test its solidity.

He couldn't repress a tight whine of pain as the object immediately clamped down hard all over his arms, like so many cruel fingers digging into his flesh. It wasn't a mechanism, he realized, as he duck his head in between his knees and grit his teeth to try and control his ragged breathing, head light and spinning from the acute, cramping ache sizzling in his hands. It was magic, seeping down in the currents of his own power, tapping into it and restraining whatever flow as soon as it happened.

It kept his mana in a painful choke-hold, and Anders had never felt anything like this. Not even at Kinloch Hold, where they had locked him up for months on end with all kinds of wards and barriers, had he encountered such an artifact. And as sadistic torture devices intended for mages went, Anders felt he could say, with some certainty, that he was somewhat of an expert. 

“What in Andraste's blighted name...?” he gritted out, still shaking from the aftershock of that surprisingly violent stab of pain.

“Who is that?” a voice called from somewhere behind him, on the same floor.

It was a woman's voice, loud and firm. The Guard-Captain's, he recognized.

“It's me,” Anders answered back, and before he could say anything idiotic, like his real name, he managed to add: “Garrett.”

“Do you see the King?” the woman asked urgently.

Anders quickly looked around him, preparing to yell back that no, he didn't, but he was fine, thank you for asking, when he noticed that two of his cell-walls were made of metal bars, not just the one in front of him. To his left, he could see the inside of another block. 

Squinting in the semi-obscurity, Anders tried to discern the traits of the person held in it through the tightly spaced metal bars. There was someone; a man, also resting against a wall, except he was in a tighter corner, and heavy chains were strapped across his naked arms. His head was hanging inertly to the side, though, so his face was hidden in the shadows, but Anders could make out his hair, short and light brown, and a strip of freckled, tan skin on his neck, lit in orange candle-light.

“Yes,” he said, “I think it's him. He's in the cell left of mine, across a corridor.”

“Thank the Maker,” he heard another a gruffer, deeper male voice sigh, coming from behind the stone wall on his right. 

“He's not moving, though,” Anders added, squinting harder, “I think he's unconscious.”

“Unconscious, how?” asked another voice, coming from right behind the wall he was resting on, this time, and Anders recognized the elven Lieutenant's voice, “Like, _'bad'_ unconscious?”

“Define _'good'_ unconscious, Fehron,” the gruff voice griped from Anders' right.

The elf took his breath in to answer, but held it there, because a loud groan had just echoed from the King's cell, making them all shut up.

“Your Majesty?” the Captain called, worry audible in her voice, “Is that you? Are you injured?”

The King raised his head slowly, with a pained frown on his features. He blinked a few times, and started looking around sluggishly. His dazed gaze met Anders', and the mage could see there was a big, bad bruise on the left side of the man's face. His flesh there was all reddened and swollen, and there was even a cut on his cheekbone, with some dry blood smeared all over it, up into the short hair on his temple. If Anders had to guess, he'd been hit with something metallic, like the butt of a staff, or the side of a shield. 

The King moved his jaw around, as if testing its elasticity, and winced with another groan, teeth gritting hard.

“I'm fine, I think,” he finally said, and his voice came out very rough, so he had to clear his throat before adding: “Mostly.”

He shifted with another wince, trying to sit straighter despite the tight hold of his chains.

“Is everyone else alright?” he asked, shouting over his shoulder, squinting at the faint candle light like it was enough to hurt his head.

Anders made a grumble of mild assent, but no one else answered, so King Alistair frowned and asked again, voice more tense:

“Captain? Are you all alright? ” 

A rustling sound came from the woman's cell, and then a sigh.

“It's Maud, Your Grace,” Meera said softly, “ She's dead.”

There was just a second of silence, and then King Alistair kicked the wall so hard, some of the plaster crumbled right off of it, making Anders jump with surprise at the violence of the hit.

“Fuck!” the King shouted, movement making his chains rattle with alarming brutality.

“She cut off a Vint's hand,” the Captain continued, speaking louder to be heard over the clank of metal links, “So he... he set her on fire, Your Grace.” 

King Alistair squeezed his eyes shut and lowered his head, and Anders could see that he was clamping his teeth so hard, his entire neck was tense, every muscle jumping out in effort.

“Dammit,” he spat out, “Those bloody bastards.”

He knocked his head back against the wall, eyes still closed, frowning hard. Letting out a tense breath, he finally looked up, as hatred slowly shifted to grief on his features.

“I, uhm...” he started, but he had to stop and clear his throat.

Anders had recognized the name of the short and pretty blonde guard from the King's escort. He pushed away the images that came to his imagination, but unfortunately for him, he knew all too well what a burning human looked like. Hair going up in flames in a second, flesh melting on bone, face distorted as pain and charring of the muscles pulled every of its features apart. Feeling nauseous, Anders lowered his gaze.

It was Fehron who came to his King's aid.

“She went down like a fighter,” he said, grim, before adding: “I know her sister, Alana. I can tell her in person, once we're back in Denerim.”

“Yeah,” King Alistair replied, nodding softly, “We'll do that, as soon as we're back. Fuck.”

Letting out another sharp breath, he leaned back against the wall. 

“What about the others?” he asked, “Do we know where we're held?”

The Captain moved again and Anders could hear a clank of heavy chains coming from her cell, too.

“We counted each other, and there's only six of us here,” she said, “Paul is still knocked out, though, Moran tells me.”

“The boy's out cold, Your Grace,” the gruff voice from before confirmed, “I think some Vint' mage got to him.”

“The others have been taken too,” Meera stated, and Anders heard a slight strain in her voice, like she, herself, had some sort of pain from an injury, “but I don't know where. Had a hood on my face for most of it, but I counted at least thirteen. Then we were split.”

She took a small pause before adding: “Maud is the only one I saw fall for certain, but honestly, there could be others.”

“Shit,” the King cussed again, and Anders couldn't help being a little surprised at how crass he was, all of the sudden.

For himself, the mage was feeling very, very tired. And not just because he was drained out by the fighting, or because his magic was unnaturally restricted, no, it was a deeper kind of exhaustion, the kind one only gets when every single thing that can go wrong, does. He straightened out his legs with a groan, muscles sore from the position they had been stuck in. 

_Of course_ this whole situation had to devolve into total chaos. First the Calling, then Justice, then Léonie's disappearance, and now, this. He had travelled all the way to Amaranthine, knowing it meant his end, just to convey what little he knew, and now there he was, imprisoned alongside the King of Ferelden by an unknown group, whose intentions they knew nothing of, but whose methods, so far, didn't exactly qualify as a good omen for the near future. 

Just peachy.

“Alright,” King Alistair finally said, voice much firmer, like he had recovered some purchase on his focus, “Any ideas on how to figure out this mess?”

“Well,” the guard Moran went, “That's what I call getting royally buggered.”

“No, No,” Fehron said, reprimanding, “That's when His Grace the King deigns poking at you with his stately prick. You're thinking of getting incredibly arse-fucked.”

“Don't I ever,” Moran sighed.

“I think his Majesty meant _'useful ideas'_ , men,” Meera reprimanded dryly.

Anders expected the King to add on to the scowling, given the situation, but instead the man just cocked a brow, tired smile on his lips, and said:

“ _Poking_? Really? Should I be offended, Lieutenant?”

Before Anders could even register the absurdity of that exchange, a loud clank echoed throughout the floor, and they all quieted down in an instant. A hard look settled back on the King's features as he listened intently, alert, at the newcomers' movement.

Anders heard a door lock close shut, a clanking of keys, and two series of footsteps approaching them. Guards, he guessed, as they started patrolling through the rows of cells, speaking low in a foreign language Anders identified instantly as Tevene. When they got to their level, he saw they were a man and a woman, clad in Imperium-style light armour, armed with swords and a short bow each. They peeked inside their cells, checking for anything unusual, he guessed. Anders threw them a baleful look once they got to him, but he couldn't even catch their gaze, because their helmets -menacing, all dark iron and spikes - had masks that hid their faces entirely.

The King straightened his back and hailed at them.

“Hello, there, fellows,” he called with a deceivingly light tone, because, Anders could see it even from there, his eyes were hard as steel, “I don't know if you realize what kind of conundrum you've dug yourselves in, but you may want to re-think this entire affair.”

The guards didn't even raise their heads, bringing instead their lantern up to cast some light on Ander's manacles, checking the state of the seals, probably. The mage squirmed away: after the darkness of the cell, that direct light dug painfully in his eyeballs.

“I don't know what Constable Maeva told you,” King Alistair insisted, “but I am the King of Ferelden. Alistair Theirin. _Maiestas vestra_? That ring a bell? I'm sure we can find some sort of peaceful solution to all of this. Let me talk to your leader, and we can... and, they're not listening.”

The guards had in fact turned around and strolled back down the corridor, starting up their conversation again like nothing happened, not even turning to look at him.

“Hello?” he called, louder, “King of Ferelden here? No? _Non quidem? Loquerisque Tevene? Felix Satinalis?_ Oh, whatever.”

He gave up, and angrily settled back against the wall. The door closed, in the distance, with another loud metallic clank and the sound of locks turning. The pair of footsteps faded away, until they were left in silence, once again.

“You should have listened to Councilor Guerrin and taken up those lessons with the Marnas Pell preceptor, Your Majesty, ” Fehron sighed.

“And you should consider getting a ladder,” King Alistair retorted, “so you can get off my back.”

Meera sighed sharply, like someone with a birthing headache, and Anders couldn't blame her. He didn't express his sympathy, though, because he was thinking. He had managed to overhear a little of the conversation between the guards, and something in there had caught his attention.

“I think I heard the word _navis_ ,” he said, thinking out loud, “Isn't that the Tevene for 'boat'?”

There was a moment of silence, and then the Captain asked:

“Do you think they plan on moving us?”

“I don't know,” Anders answered, voice low and mind still running, “Maybe.”

Depending on where they had been moved along the coast, a ship could moor anywhere. Landing was made harder by the Emerald Cliffs, but this part of the shore-line was still full of caves and coves, and if the sea was good enough, a quick anchoring could be a matter of minutes. When he'd landed in Ferelden after his stop at Brendal's Reach, Anders remembered how he had been brought in a makeshift harbour built in one such creek by the smugglers carrying him. 

And if they managed to set sail...

“Great,” Moran grunted, “We're going to end up as blood sacrifices for some Altus in Minrathous. I just know it.”

“You're not being very optimistic, Moran,” a new, somewhat thin voice, echoed from a corner of the floor.

“Paul?” King Alistair called, pulling at his chains to twist around, trying uselessly to see down the corridor, “Are you alright?”

“Not really, Your Grace,” he said, and Anders could hear the frown in his young voice, “Where is Fasin? And Dhale? I was with them when the spells started flying.”

“We don't know,” Moran answered, voice thick with anger, “We've been separated from the others.”

“What about the Wardens?” Paul asked, confusion growing more and more in his tone, “Have they been caught too? Who attacked us?”

“We've been betrayed,” Meera said, “The Constable is the one who led us here.”

“But why?”

“That, kid,” Fehron sighed, “Is the question of the day.”

They all chewed on that, falling into a long, sullen silence. Anders rested his head against the humid, cold wall behind him, and saw with the corner of his eye that the King had done the same.

Biting absent-mindedly at his bottom lip, the mage tried to make sense of it all. Constable Maeva had set them up, but why? What could warrant the insane risk of selling the King off? What was the link between this, and Léonie's disappearance? Why were their captors Tevinter? Did the Imperium have a role in all of this? 

He sighed. Clearly, he had more questions than answers. At least he knew, now, why there had been so little prodding about his identity, back at the Keep, when a simple search in the records would have shown the Constable that there was no Warden Garrett: if she just wanted to get rid of them, she didn't even need to know who he was. That should have tipped him off more, back then, he regretted.

Anders was pulled out of his cogitation by some noise coming from the King's cell. He turned his head to see that the monarch was groaning with effort, ample muscles tensing and bulging out as he pulled at his chains with all his strength. A vein was beginning to stand out on his neck, and Anders started to worry he was going to seriously hurt himself.

“Are you well, your Grace?” he heard Fehron ask loudly, “I've got to say, it sounds a lot like you're doing something I'm rather afraid to mention.”

King Alistair relaxed all at once, panting, and let out an exasperated sigh. 

“Screw you, Fehron,” he shouted back, “I'm trying to get us out of here, unlike you.”

“Oh, but I have a plan,” the Lieutenant started, “First, we get a broom...”

Anders wanted to turn around to listen better, but a bolt of pain went through his forearms, so he cussed and focused back to his seals, trying to find a way to disrupt them. He tested for his left, but simply moving it sent a shot of acute strain throughout his entire left side, and so he groaned and gave up. He hadn't gotten half of what the elf was saying, but his plan seemed to involve gaatlok, now, and the seduction of at least two guards.

“ _And then_ ,” Fehron was concluding, “I lift His Grace out, through the hole in the roof.”

Anders saw King Alistair roll his eyes so far back into his head, he had to have seen the faces of his ancestors.

“But of course,” the King said, sardonic, “And pray tell me, Lieutenant, what are you going to lift me with? Your twig- _fucking_ -arms?”

“Wow. Alright, I see,” Fehron said, sounding exaggeratedly vexed, “You know what I'm going to do with my twig-fucking-arms? I'm going to shove them both up your ass, Your Majesty.”

Were all Royal Guards so insubordinate? Anders couldn't help but feeling sort of bewildered, but the strangest part was that King Alistair, Ruler of Ferelden, apparently seemed to enjoy it, because he couldn't stop a smile from cracking his lips, as he shook his head, grinning childishly. Anders could not believe it: they were trapped like rabbits, and the King and his Royal Guard were cracking _jokes_. And bad ones, at that. Maybe it was their way of alleviating tension, but it made this already absurd situation sound outright surreal. Despite himself, Anders couldn't help being reminded of a certain someone else with the bad habit of fending off dire situations with questionably-tasteful sarcasms, and  _no, his mind was definitely not going there_. 

“Watch what you promise, Fehron,” King Alistair was sneering, shouting over his shoulder, “I might ask for your hand in marriage, once you get it out of there.”

The elf let out an outraged cry.

“Ew,“ he exclaimed, “In your dreams, you shemlen freak!”

“Both of you, shut up!” the Captain yelled, silencing them.

She then went silent herself, for a while, like realizing she had just ordered her own King to make quiet. When she started again, her voice was much meeker.

“I have an idea,” she added.

The King cleared his throat and sat straighter, well, as best he could with his hands tied to the wall.

“Go ahead, Captain,” he said, managing to sound serious again.

“If they plan to move us,” she started, “we could use it to our advantage. They're bound to carry us in the open at some point. Depending on how many they are, even if there's only six of us, we could do some damage, enough to give you time to escape. Especially if we use the mage.”

Anders realized she was talking about him, and made a dubious noise.

“I won't be much _'use'_ , I'm afraid,” he said, “I am stuck in some sort of enchanted bond. I've never seen magic like it.”

The King pulled on his own restraints, trying to spy on what he was talking about.

“If it's magic,” he said, “maybe I can break it.”

“Could you?” asked Anders, the idea of being free of that hideous device making him tense with anticipation, “From over there?”

“What? No,” the King scowled, “It's much too far. Who do you take me for, Knight-Commander Greagoir?”

Anders couldn't refrain a scoff at the bare mention of that name, but nobody seemed to pick up on his scorn. Instead, King Alistair just settled back.

“I'd need to be close enough to touch them,” he said, before turning his head in the direction where he thought Meera was.

“But none of this matters, “ he said, louder, “Because, if I heard you correctly, you mean to say we use all of you as a distraction for me to bail out of here, leaving you behind? That's your great plan?”

“Yes,” Meera said, solemnly.

The King snorted. But his look, Anders could see, was not joking at all anymore.

“Hilarious, Captain, really,” he said, not laughing whatsoever, “And also, completely out of the question.”

“Your Majesty...”

“End of discussion,” he snapped, “Anyone else?”

But apparently, they had run out of ideas, because all that answered the King was a series of sighs and uncomfortable shifting. 

“Great,” he sighed, bumping his head back on the wall.

Time passed slowly: with no outside light coming in whatsoever, there was no way to know that time of day it was, or to try and follow the progression of the hours. It drove Anders insane, not to be able to see the sky. Even in that rat hole Darktown, he had had a window. With a shitty sight of Kirkwall's most sordid slums, but still, a peek of outside air. The last four years of travel had him used to the great open spaces of Fereldan nature, so this low-ceiling, damp cell block – not to mention that awful trap he was stuck in - was making him feel outright buried alive.

The King was still trying, uselessly, to pull on his chains. They were actually two pairs of manacles, Anders could see now, one for his wrists and one pulling his arms together right above his elbows, so tight they made him arch his back and push his bare chest forward. That had to be painful, Anders thought. A shiver took the King and he sneezed, before wincing in pain, probably from his swollen cheek, or his strained shoulders, maybe.

“Ouch,” he groaned.

“Maker's blessings upon you, Your Grace,” Paul's even and high-pitched voice piped up. 

“Thanks.”

He sniffled, and Anders himself shivered. The air was so humid, the strands of his hair he could feel against his face were damp. This place they were locked in must have been way underground, or maybe only near some running water, or the sea. That mold he smelled from before, it felt more akin to dirt and sawdust, actually, than rot. Could this be some kind of storage ground?

Suddenly, the door opened once more, and they all tensed in waiting. This time, there were much more than two series of footsteps.

“Alright,” King Alistair called out, “I'll give you one more chance.”

Four men appeared up the corridor, and two opened Anders' cell. He struggled against his bonds but that only made him groan with pain as the Tevinter guards approached him and grabbed him by the shoulders. One knelt down to unlock his shackles from the wall, as King Alistair kept going:

“If you tell me who you're working for, we can...”

A guard brutally interrupted him with a nasty kick to his exposed belly, making him cough out whatever air was left in his lungs. The man then grabbed him by his chains and pulled him up, before he had time to recover. He was a short, burly warrior, and got him off the ground with ease, despite the King's own impressive stature.

“Fine,” King Alistair wheezed out, once he was on his feet and had managed to restore his breathing, “Let nobody say that I have not tried to be nice.”

Ander's guards hauled him up and towards the corridor, and he could hear from the struggling noises behind him that they were doing the same with the others as well. Soon they were all lined up and led down their cell block and towards the door. While they were moved, Anders could see that Paul's skin was a deep, rich brown, and that Moran's hair was pitch black. He recognized them from the King's escort, now that he saw them, even if he hadn't been able to place their voices. 

Behind the floor door was a flight of stairs, then another small room, and after one last door, which the burly Tevinter opened with a large key, they were outside. 

Anders winced at the bright, white light that came from the cloudy sky above him. A cold sea wind brushed over his skin, making him shiver, and the smell of wet, salty dirt filled his lungs. When he could finally see again, blinking painfully at the hidden sun, he took in their location, recognizing instantly the courtyard of a big farm. It looked very much abandoned, with no shutters at the windows and plaster coming off in large portions from the facade, baring out the bricks underneath. The perfect hiding spot, innocuous and sizeable enough to conceal a large unit.

Across the courtyard, Anders heard some shouts, and the clanking of more chains. There were more prisoners, also being walked in line across the wide patio. Even without their armour, it was easy to make two plus two, especially when they all exclaimed at the sight of the King. Anders counted seven, no, eight more Royal Guards: one was being carried in a stretcher by two others. 

“Osborne!” the King called out, “How are you...?”

But a Tevinter walking next to him put out his hand and pushed the King's head the other way, stamping his armoured palm hard on the left, bruised side of his face. It made him hiss in pain, but the King turned over again immediately, still trying to catch sight of his men.

“We lost Gorim and Dhale,” the woman was answering, “And Sofia is... Get your filthy hands off me, you ugly Vint'!”

Anders saw the Guard, a short, honey-skinned woman, receive a violent hit in the back with the flat of a mage staff. She fell to the ground, unable to keep her balance with her hands tied behind her back. The King's shoulders tensed, and he inhaled furiously.

“Don't fight!” he ordered, right before the same guard gave him a shove again, behind the head, this time.

They made them wait as some of the Tevinter soldiers got on horses. Anders felt his shoulders and back were shaking, and he bit his lip to keep himself from making a noise: his arms were killing him, every step sending jolts of pain from his shoulder blades all the way to the tip of his fingers. 

When they moved out, their captors arranged them in a line. Every three or four prisoners, a guard stood right next to the queue, at least a dozen in total, and five men on horses patrolling around. Some of them had bows, spears and swords, but among them all, Anders counted at least six mages, with metal staves ending in sharp, dark blades.

Soon the farm was behind them, and the convoy advanced at a trying pace. The ground was as uneven as it had been when they arrived near the Cliffs, making it impossible to see in the far distance. They had to constantly climb up and down crevasses littered with big, white rocks, a task not made easy by their bonds. 

Anders felt his head starting to spin: he had no idea how long he could go on like this. He was starting to get very nervous, too, anxiety constricting his belly like two cruel, cold hands: what if Justice decided this was enough? If he manifested, the mage would have no control over what would happen next, a terrifying prospect, with so many lives at stakes. Then again, it wasn't really Justice's style to put his safety above that of others. No, if that was the case, he would have appeared much sooner...

Anders tried to figure out where they were, to catch a glimpse of the coastline or any relevant scenery he would recognize, but so far, it was only monotonous moors with little vegetation other than the coarse, green grass whipping his legs. He could feel the presence of a soldier right behind him, and there was another standing at the right of the King. There was a Guard he didn't know between him and King Alistair, and after him, he could see the Captain, standing half a head taller than all of them. 

There had been silence, until now, but little by little, some muttering started between the Royal Guards. They were soon pushed and shoved into silence, but Anders saw very distinctly the nod the Guard-Captain and Moran exchanged. Apparently, so did the King, because his hands curled into fists, irons digging deep into the flesh of his wrists. 

A skirmish started ahead of the convoy, and Anders heard Fehron's biting voice yell something offensive at a guard, followed by the loud thud of a boot against a leg. The line stopped and the guards next to them looked ahead, fidgeting impatiently. The one behind Anders even sighed, sharp and annoyed.

“Meera,” King Alistair growled, low and menacing, “Don't do this. It's an order, Captain. Do you hear me?”

But the tall woman was already moving out of line, and the King could not shout, or he'd attract attention to her instantly.

“Stop,” he hissed, instead, voice suddenly tense with what sounded almost like panic, “You idiot, don't do this! Meera!”

“I'm sorry, Your Grace,” she just said, and Anders braced himself as she rammed into the nearest Tevinter guard with all her might.

They both fell to the floor, but she managed to scramble up and instantly kneel over him, shoving her knee in his throat until his neck snapped with a loud crack.

“ _Fasta vass_ ,” the soldier near the King shouted, turning his spear to her, “ What are you...?”

But his voice died out as he realized King Alistair was already on him. The King gathered his strength and headbutted the man square in the face, so hard Anders heard the Vint's nose cave in with a loud, wet crunch. He fell to the floor at once, boneless. There was blood between the King's furrowed brows as he straightened up, assessing his surrounding, looking for him. Their gazes connected as chaos erupted all around them.

The Tevinter standing behind Anders grabbed his hair and pulled hard on it, stopping him painfully and brutally in his tracks. With a loud grunt of effort, the Royal Guard behind Anders kicked the man in the knees, freeing him from his grasp, and the mage stumbled forward. A thundering of hooves came from his right, and he turned his head just in time to see a horse run towards them, with the soldier on it spinning a staff above his head.

“ _Vadeve Venhedis!_ ” the rider shouted, and Anders felt the air crunch and tighten with a familiar crackle of magic.

“Look out!” he screamed, lunging towards King Alistair, who was running to him and was in the middle of the spell's trajectory.

He all but jumped on top of the King, tripping him to the ground, and the ball of fire blew right over them both, crashing against the thick grass, burning off a big section of it with a gasp of scorching wind.

Anders hit the ground hard with his face, and groaned as he tried to catch his breath. The hit had emptied his lungs and he had trouble inhaling with his hands tied behind his back. The seals were burrowing their cruel claws in his flesh, and he let out a strangled moan, fighting to keep his focus against the blinding, nauseating strain in his arms.

“Do it,” he managed to hiss at the King, holding his back out to him, “Now!”

King Alistair didn't hesitate, nor did he hold back. He weighted down on him, closed his eyes and released a powerful wave of anti-magic that ripped though Anders' body with white-hot, blistering pain. 

The mage screamed as he felt the seals on his arms sizzle and crack, until they shattered all at once. Whimpering weakly, he tried to catch his breath and do his best to concentrate the magic back in his arms, now that the blocks were gone and despite the burning, chaotic shreds of Templar power still in his veins. 

A man fell right next to them and Anders turned his head just in time to see a spear go through his chest. Blood gurgled out of the man's mouth and he choked on it, eyes wide with panic. As the Tevinter soldier pulled his spear back, the Royal Guard's look glossed over and he remained motionless, staring blindly at the sky. King Alistair, who had managed to get back on his knees, let out a furious roar, and jumped at the Tevinter, avoiding a stab of his spear and kicking the side of his knee with terrifying brutality. It broke with a wet, ugly snap and the man fell down screaming. As the King ruthlessly kicked the Vint's face in with his heel, Anders finally managed to get a hold on his powers. 

His eyes flew open, as ice engulfed both his arms, freezing up the manacles that still bound them together. He pulled, and the metal broke off, setting him free. The pain was horrific, but he forced himself to push on his numb arms anyway, and get up.

Once he overlooked the rocky hills, what he saw froze him with dread. The Royal Guards were fighting valiantly, but in their condition, they were getting slaughtered. They had dispersed, making the captor's task harder as they hid between the asperities of the ground, but the horses, in particular, were dealing massive damage, cutting open any small group that had managed to form. A few Tevinter soldiers were busy wrestling down prisoners, shoving their faces in the ground and subduing them with difficulty. There were several bodies on the floor, and Anders only had time to recognize Moran's corpse, laying over a rock wet with his blood, before a burning pain exploded in his right shoulder. 

He let out a surprised cry, and lowered his gaze to see the fletching of an arrow nuzzled deep under his collarbone. Following the trajectory of the shot, he saw a woman, face masked, tensing her bow again, and immediately deployed his barrier, just in time for a second arrow to crash against it.

The shield faltered, though, because the arrow in his shoulder was making his head spin, breaking his focus. He went to heal himself, but as the barrier fizzled down, the woman had already notched another bolt. 

She shot, but the dart missed him, buzzing angrily somewhere on his left, because Guard-Captain Meera had just appeared from behind a fold in the terrain and kicked the archer hard in the groin, disrupting her aim. She tripped her and kicked her again in the ribs, making her howl in pain, as Anders managed to grab the bloody feathers of the dart stuck in his shoulder. 

Breathing deeply, he ripped out the arrow, healing the wound in the same motion, doing a botched job of it and tearing a cry of pain from himself, but sealing the injury best he could.

“Go!” the Captain yelled at him, “Take the King and run!”

There was a gashing cut on her dark, freckled cheek, oozing blood into her mouth, and her black hair was all stuck to it, glued to the side of her face in caked, dirty strands.

Anders' look went from her distressed face, to the bodies scattered on the ground, to Fehron suddenly appearing to stand at his Captain's side, assessing his surroundings, limping and short of breath, and he felt a burst of powerless rage flare up in his chest. 

He couldn't save them all, he realized. Not staff-less and weakened as he was. 

“Go!” the Captain shouted again, spotting a Tevinter rider coming up to them, galloping at full speed with a mace in his hand, “Hurry, please!”

They were going to die, Anders thought, because they were bound and outnumbered. Because he was too weak to save them all. 

_It wasn't fair._

Anders' nails dug deep in his palms as he felt the burning flow of Justice's power flood his veins. His magic boiled up in him and he stared at the ground in front of the rider, raising his hands. A glyph of paralysis appeared in an instant over the grass and when the horse stepped on it, it was frozen in place, but the rider wasn't. The man was projected forward, flipping over his mount's neck and crashing violently on the ground where he lay, motionless. There was no time to dwell on how the feeling of Justice's magic flowing through him upturned his stomach -no, please, not again, never again - because both Fehron and Meera looked up at him again, and Anders' gaze met the Captain's. Her eyes were thin and slanted and pitch black, and full of an uncompromising, adamant determination, as she nodded firmly at him.

Anders had a choice, he understood: he could stay and try to help them, risking they all died, or he could do as she was asking. 

And who was going to find Léonie, if there was no one left to look for her?

Anders nodded back, throat clenched shut, and reluctantly turned his back on the two Guards. He just had the time to hear Fehron scream at someone to _"Come show your face, slaver!”_ before the noise of the battle swallowed them both away. A few feet down the slope he was standing on, he saw King Alistair, still fighting against a Tevinter, seconded by two more of his men, who had managed to get close enough to act as his shield. This time they were facing a warrior, wielding a massive sword with both his hands. _“The burly jailor,”_ Anders recognized, making his way down the slope as fast as he could to help them. 

The King was trying to close up on the Tevinter's space and impede his arm movement, but the man pushed him back with a shove of his armoured shoulder, and Alistair tripped and fell on his back, chest and stomach exposed to a deadly blow. One of the Royal Guards stepped in front of him, a big redheaded man with a Hinterlander's features, and when the sword caught him hard on the shoulder, it dug so deep into his flesh it cut right down to the middle of his chest.

“No!” the King yelled, as the man fell to the side without a noise.

The big sword had remained stuck in him, though, so when the Tevinter soldier went to pull on it to free it from the body, he opened his guard for a second too long. Anders' ice bolt caught him on the side of the face, freezing up his head instantly, and the elven woman Guard who was still standing by her King pushed him right down. 

The ice shattered as it hit a big rock on the ground, leaving the man decapitated, and Anders ran down the rest of the ridge, tripping on the uneven slope in his haste to reach the pair. When he caught up to them, the King had managed to get back on his feet, and Anders immediately closed his hands on his chains, letting his magic run down his arms and to his hands, freezing the shackles solid. The King's large back contracted all at once, and with an angry, strained shout, he flexed his shoulders and pulled with his arms and suddenly the damaged chains snapped, and he was free.

He got his hands up in front of him just in time to block a pommel hit to his face. A Tevinter rogue had managed to sneak on them and the steel handle of his dagger made a loud, scary thud against King Alistair's arm, but the man didn't even flinch as he grabbed the soldiers wrist and bent it downwards until it snapped loudly. With a furious growl he then punched the man in the face and disarmed him, taking hold of his weapon as the man dropped unconscious.

The King looked at his dead Guard laying cut open on the ground, blood splattered all over the grass and sinking deep into the dirt, and his mouth twitched. His knuckles were white around the hilt of the dagger.

“Hurry, Your Grace!” the elven Guard was shouting at him, “You must leave, now!”

Anders had grabbed her by the shoulder and was freezing her chains as well, trying to keep an eye on their surroundings.

“Don't be absurd,” the King growled back, face hard with rage, eyes darting around to spot upcoming danger.

The woman's shackles gave in and she leaped forward, grabbing him by the arm to pull him away from the fight, towards the cliff.

“Valeris, let me go!” the King ordered, “I must find the Captain, and we must...”

There were tears in the elf's eyes as she turned on her heels and screamed in his face:

“You must leave!”

Her long auburn hair had come loose from the ribbon that had bound it, and fell in thin strands in front of her face.

“They're going to die for nothing if you don't!” she kept going, digging her fingers in his arm, “They can surrender once you're gone, Your Grace, please, just go!”

Her eyes widened as she spotted three Tevinter riders appearing from behind one hill and pointing straight at them. One was twirling a staff, and Anders immediately stood in front of the others, summoning his barrier and charging up a lightning bolt. Valeris all but pushed the King towards the edge of the battle-field where he staggered backwards, looking at her like a man flayed, lips parted to say something, but she didn't let him.

“Go!” she screamed, and she bent down to pick up a spear from a Tevinter corpse, turning on her heels without another look, running straight towards the enemy.

“For Ferelden!” she roared, and Anders barely had time to hit the mage with his lightning before she reached the first rider and jumped right at him, shoving her spear inside his mount's chest.

With a pitiful scream, the horse tumbled forward in a blurry of hooves and steel, catching both her and his rider on its way down. The mage had diverted Anders' spell and fired back with some sort of entropic cloud he didn't recognize, and Anders countered hurriedly, backing away as fast he could.

“Your Majesty?” he called blindly, urgency in his voice, as the second rider tensed the string of his bow.

He couldn't divert his eyes from the enemy mage, trying to anticipate his next spell with the movements of his staff, and he knew they hadn't much time before they got to them.

 _“Your Majesty?”_ he tried again, tighter, hissing as a big fireball exploded against his barrier, making his arms shake with the violence of the impact.

The King's breathing was so tense he heard it from behind him, and then the man cussed loudly, voice coarse with rage and frustration. His hand was steel hard as it caught Anders' shoulder to pull him backwards, and an arrow whistled right by the mage's ear as they started to run.

The King had a powerful stride, but Anders was lighter. When he heard the crackle of electricity right behind his ear, he was the one to drag the larger man down another slope, dodging the bolt of lighting that went right over their heads. Anders tripped and almost tumbled down the steep ridge, but King Alistair grabbed his arm and held him up as they kept sprinting. 

_“The sea”_ , Anders recognized, far below them as they approached the jagged border of a cliff.

The thundering of the horse's hooves was getting closer and closer, and he heard one of them snort and blow as if it, itself, had trouble keeping upright because of the inclination and the dangerous rocks littering the ground. One of the riders cried out an order, and Anders knew he had to take the occasion of catching them distracted. 

Spinning on his heels, Anders shot another ice spell at the mage, who got his staff up at the last moment to parry, but lost his balance when the horse, terrified, jumped sideways. He fell to the ground, but the other rider was coming straight at them, tensing his bow and aiming right at the King. Anders lifted a barrier on both of them and winced in pain, feeling his mana reserves fall dangerously low. The arrow shattered against the energy wall, but the King wasn't moving. 

He stood low, like a dog ready to leap, dagger raised in front of him and eyes staring straight ahead. The horse was getting closer and closer, thrown at full speed in his direction, and Anders could only stare as the King let him reach him. 

At the last second, when the chest of the horse was merely a foot from his face, the warrior dodged to the left at a speed Anders found almost frightening. He grabbed the rider's leg and, with a growl of effort, keeping himself as far as he could from the lethal hooves of the animal, he unseated him, pulling him down hard on the ground as they plummeted together. The horse kept going for a little while and then stopped, confused, like looking around for his rider. He wasn't going to find him anytime soon, because the King had jumped on top of him instantly and sunk his dagger in his throat all the way down to the hilt, holding the man's extended hand in a merciless grip as it tried to claw at his face.

It had all gone down in a matter of seconds, and Anders could barely catch his breath before a violent lightning bolt threw him off his feet. Healing magic ran instantly all over his body, fighting hard to counter the damage from the spell as he lifted himself on his elbows, gritting his teeth against the burning pain that sizzled in his flesh. He saw the Tevinter mage try to get on his feet and stumbling forward, one arm hanging uselessly along his body, and the other raised as he prepared to hit again, but the Apostate was faster. 

The man's neck snapped loudly as Anders' mind blast hit him in the head, and he fell to the floor like a string-less puppet.

Anders stayed like that for a moment, then, on his hands and knees, trying hard to catch his breath, lungs burning and hair all glued to his face with sweat. The King was also panting hard, but he didn't stop to recover, and instead grabbed the Tevinter mage's horse by the reins.

“Come on!” he called, in between two gasps for air, “We have to go, quick!”

They could already hear more cries approaching from the other side of the slope. It was only a matter of seconds before they got spotted. The roar of the waves was like a low buzz in Ander's ears, meddling with his thoughts and mixing in with the Calling.

“No, wait,” he managed to rasp out, pushing himself up with a groan, “We can't out-ride them.”

He stumbled a little but managed to run to the King's side as he was catching up on the second horse, who had started to nibble on some grass.

“Let's tie them together,” Anders said, voice barely a hiss, “They'll leave hoofprints.”

The King considered the idea for a split second before nodding.

“Alright,” he said, handing him the reins as he looked nervously over his shoulder and to the edge of the hill.

Anders did it fast, and as soon as the reins were secured together, he slapped the closest horse's croup, sending both animals in a frantic gallop. 

“Now, come on,” the King said, grabbing his arm and pulling him towards the cliff, “get down, fast!”

Anders ran to the edge of the cliff, doing his best not to look down too long at the sharp rocks at the end of that vertiginous fall. Sliding down the border, he grabbed onto an asperity and let himself glide down a few feet. The slope was extremely steep, but not impracticable. Doing his best not to move too many rocks, he felt the King do the same, and stop but a little above him. Flattening himself on the hard surface of the cliff, Anders rested his head against a cold rock and waited.

 


	6. Oath-breaking

 

 

 

 

“ _Six of them, Maker. I lost six, at least._ ”

The cold wind was like a steely hand, gripping the bruised side of Alistair's face like the too-familiar touch of a cruel governess harshly disciplining a child. His stare was unfocused, unable to really see the grey rock wall in front of him, his concentration already entirely devoted to his listening and the burning in his chest, in his hands, and on his shoulders. His hold on the stone of the cliff was maybe a little tighter than necessary for him not to fall, but it didn't hurt worse than the lump in his throat, so big it all but clasped it shut, reducing his breathing to barely a hiss. 

“ _Maud's sister was planning on joining as well, wasn't she?_ ” he thought, shifting slightly as the dagger in his right hand left him with only two fingers with which to grip the rock, “ _And Deville has two daughters. Had, Maker, damn it._ ”

The Tevinter soldiers were speaking to each other while ruffling through their fallen comrades' equipment, he could hear it, despite the roar of the waves, the blow of the wind, and the thumping of blood in his ears. One man was shouting, and another voice, much further away, was answering on the same tone. Probably standing on that slope from before, Alistair had no trouble figuring out. They were at least four, with two horses.

“ _I've already killed five people today,_ ” he thought, recognizing that icy, numb tonality in his mind, the one he had first discovered was in him in Ostagar, as he watched Loghain's forces turn away from the battlefield, “ _I can do four more._ ”

Pressing his forehead on that cold rock, Alistair closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. There was a buzzing pain right between his eyebrows, at the spot where his head had collided with that first jailor's nose. He wished that that, along with the burn of effort in his muscles and the throbbing of his left cheek, would help him center himself against the the images of his Guards' corpses lying in the grass, but it was hopeless. His guts were twisted tight, and he wanted nothing more than to get up there and catch up with the convoy, kill everyone standing between him and his men, or die trying. Was he really going to let them be taken away? Was he going to abandon them to the hands of an unknown force, free to do with them whatever they pleased? What manner of a Commander left his men behind as he escaped?

“ _Someone like Loghain._ ”

Meera's black eyes had been so hard as she set her jaw and disobeyed his direct order, and Deville's large back had split in half with such ease under the weight of that great-sword. Not knowing who was still alive was the worst part of it. Had Fehron's clever eyes gone blank? What about Osborne, Paul, Valeris, Fasin, Moran and all the others, whose names he all knew by heart, with whom he had trained and shared in jokes and... 

“ _Watch that bad temper of yours, baseborn mutt,_ ” he ordered himself, Arlessa Isolde's words still as fresh in his memory as when she had first spat them at him, “ _Don't be the usual brainless idiot. You've already gotten half your Guard killed, do you really want to go finish the job?_ ”

“ _Leave!_ ” Valeris had screamed, blood running down her long fingers, leaving marks on the skin of his arm, “ _Please, Your Grace, just go!_ ”

“ _We must stand apart from them,_ ” he remembered Duncan saying, quoting from Warden-Commander Kristoff of the Blessed Age, “ _That is the only way we can ever make the hard decisions._ ”

When Alistair opened his eyes again, his breathing had slowed down to a regular, measured pace, but there was a bitter taste in his mouth and a weight on his back as heavy and cold as the stone he held on to.

The riders were getting back on their horses, and the foot-soldiers exchanged a last few words with them before they galloped away, urging their mounts on with tense shouts. Their strategy had worked: they were pursuing the crazed animals they had sent running South-East. The two Tevinter left quickly ran up the slope, until their footsteps and their voices drowned away into the distance. 

Alistair risked a peek downwards, feeling the mage shift under him. Thankfully, he wasn't afraid of heights because, even though he had barely even noticed it, that drop was spectacular, the sharp rocks at the bottom of it far enough below to resemble grains of sand. The other man looked like he was starting to tire, face strained as he held on to the asperities of the cliff. The King felt another burst of hatred flare up in his chest, like if someone had added a fresh log to the fire raging in his insides.

“ _Right,_ ” he thought, “ _Of course, there's that too._ ”

Up there, the silence was starting to really settle in. A few minutes had passed, now, and Alistair thought the time was ripe to make his move. 

Without a word, he started climbing up, feeling his right arm protest, and not giving a damn about it. He didn't turn to check if the mage was following him safely.

“ _Maybe he could fall to his death. That would be one less thing to worry about._ ”

When he got to the ridge, he carefully peeked up. The bodies were still there, and there was no other movement. On his guard, Alistair pulled himself over the edge of the cliff, standing low, trying not to make a sound. After a second, seeing nothing had changed, he quickly made his way to the bodies and knelt to search them.

“Damn it,” he cursed.

Their weapons were gone. The Vints' had taken them, as well as their helmets and the bigger pieces of their armor. Now, he could see their faces clearly: ordinary, like all soldiers once they were dead. The archer had been young, younger than him, and there was blood clotting around his mouth and down his nose from his open neck-vein.

“Looted?” the apostate asked, kneeling right by him, and Alistair could only muster up a grunt as an answer, jolting up and away quickly.

He had no intention of sharing in that man's space more than what was strictly necessary, so he instead decided to search the perimeter a little, looking for anything useful, keeping his ears focused on spotting incoming sound, and his fists closed tight to rein in the impulse of just running up the slope to give chase. 

While he hastily looked around, the mage searched the bodies more thoroughly, pocketing a few things, and Alistair heard him make a sound of effort as he had to lift one of the men up to disentangle his doublet from him. They had to move quicker than that, Alistair knew, get far enough from there before the two mounted Tevinter found the rider-less horses and realized they had to still be around. 

He gave one last look at the jagged edge of the rocky hill: behind that ridge, the battlefield. His men's bodies, surely, left behind to rot in the grass. Alistair bit the inside of his cheek, drawing blood and tasting its salt on his tongue, as he turned his back on the slope to go back to where the mage was kneeling.

“ _If Meera is still alive, I'm going to have her fucking head._ ”

“Are you done?” he asked the other man or, more accurately, barked at him, not caring even a little bit how dry his voice sounded, “We need to move out.”

Instead of answering, the mage threw a doublet at him.

“There,” he said, and Alistair barely had time to catch the garment mid-air before it fell to the ground.

Dead man's clothes. Lovely. But that cold wind was merciless against his naked back, so he reluctantly put the thing on, well, he tried to, at least. 

“It's too blighted small,” he grumbled to himself.

Of course it was, especially around the shoulders, but he didn't want to freeze to death, so he made it work as best he could, cutting a line in the fabric along the seams with the dagger to allow some space for his arms. Now there were holes in it, but it was better than nothing, he supposed.

“Here, take this too,” the mage said as he finally got up, handing him a scarf, a wool thing the same light grey as the doublet.

Alistair wrapped the dead man's scarf around his neck and grimly wished it was a noose. The Apostate had already slipped on the archer's jacket, despite the large blood stain it had on the front, from the slit throat Alistair had given the Tevinter earlier. He had also salvaged a belt with a pouch on it, maybe for potions.

“Come on,” Alistair said, still tasting blood on his tongue, “Let's move.”

 

The horses they had sent off had galloped away towards the land, so Alistair chose to run along the edge of the cliff, hoping to steer clear of the riders pursuing them. The wind had picked up even more, and twilight was already starting to set in. They ran for a few miles in complete, nervous silence, until they had to slow down: the sky was getting dark quick, making it harder and harder to see the edge of the precipice. It would have been so easy to mis-step, and Alistair wasn't happy about it, but they had no other choice but to walk. As he did, it took him some time to catch his breath: his limbs were burning and the left side of his face had started throbbing really hard. That Vint' had really gotten him good, armored fist knocking him right out as he struggled to get free of the slowing spell, allowing for a mage to put him to sleep for a good few hours. When he carefully checked the state of the wound with his fingers, he couldn't help but wince: the tender flesh there had swollen up so much, it was starting to obstruct his eye. Great: impaired vision was just what he needed, right now. 

“ _I think Wells would have traded that in gladly anytime, don't you?_ ” he bitterly reminded himself, thinking of how the spear had went though the Redcliffe archer's chest right as he stood watching.

Alistair bit his lip and walked faster, trying to keep his cool, to shake that stupid, useless wish to scream from himself, and after another few, long minutes of silent marching, the mage stepped up to his level.

“So,” he said, squinting at the edge of the cliff with a closed-off look on his face, “What do we do, now?”

It took all of Alistair's will to remain as collected as he could and not just start yelling right off. He had sworn to himself he was not going to fuck this up, but this was too much. Silence was the only thing he was going to accept from that wretched liar.

“ _'We'_ are not going to do anything,” he gritted out, still staring straight ahead to resist the urge of punching his throat in, “ _'I'_ am heading back to Vigil's Keep as fast as possible, to take command the City Guard and make that fucker Maeva spit out everything she knows.”

He heard the man open his mouth but turned to him before he had time to say anything.

“ _'You'_ , on the other hand,” he growled, just looking at his face enough to make his palms itch, “are going to shut the fuck up and stay out of my sight, starting now. Am I making myself clear?”

The mage scoffed -outright _scoffed_ \- at him, setting his jaw and not giving in an inch as he hissed back:

“And why would I do that, pray tell me?”

Alistair felt his mouth twitch and that cold spike seated between his kidneys spur him forward dangerously. Did he really take him for such an idiot? Why did people always do that? Did he have “ _big dumb oaf_ ” stamped in bold letters across his forehead? Admittedly, that would explain a little too many things about his life.

“ _Truly a dim-witted little mongrel,_ ” Isolde had sighed all those years ago, as he shakily formed his first letters on a piece of parchment, right hand awkwardly wrapped around the quill.

“Do you really think I don't know who you are?” he lashed out, voice low only because he could not scream, but nowhere less enraged.

And to see the mage's features collapse right before he managed to conceal his surprise was a small satisfaction he was not going to deny himself.

“And who would that be?” the man said, still defiant, trying to look unaffected, and failing.

For a blighted coward, the man sure had some nerve.

“You're Anders,” Alistair spat, the cursed name enough to coat his tongue with bitter venom, “The Apostate.”

The man's face twitched, like he had just been stung by a needle. This was a stupid idea, Alistair knew it, but Maker, how he had itched to shove that down his throat, from the very moment he had recognized him. 

“We've met twice, you know?” he pursued, not giving him time to utter a single word, “Once in Viscount Dumar's hall, with the Champion, and one right in Amaranthine, after the Blight. Do you remember? In that same courtyard where you introduced yourself as “Warden Garrett”, yesterday.”

He remembered it all too well, even that first meeting ten years ago in Amaranthine, beside Commander Lellac, when he had still been vacant from the Tower-top Battle of Fort Drakon, and the memories of Cousland's last moments. It's not easy to forget when you've met someone who then went on to commit one of the most hideous crimes in the history of Thedas. Especially if you were the one to have allowed his Conscription, intead of letting the Templars recapture him... 

Despite what that Knight woman had told him about the man's crimes, Alistair had done nothing to stop Commander Lellac from claiming him. And why would he have? This unknown mage on the run, how bad could he be? Surely he could be more of a use to the Wardens than he was a danger to Thedas, right? The ranks of the Order were so cruelly lacking, after all that had happened, barely starting to replenish, and new recruits were sorely needed. The risk of the Joining was great, but like it did all his members, if he lived, the Order would provide this Apostate with a cause, a family, the necessary control, and relative safety. Much more than he seemed to have found at Kinloch Hold, at least, and with all the horrors that Alistair himself had witnessed down there, it was not much surprise, really.

What could possibly go wrong?

“ _A question I should really, really stop asking, at some point,_ ” the King thought grimly.

They had even spoken, both times. Of Mages and Templars.

Go figure. 

The Apostate was standing still, but he had somewhat changed his demeanor. Expression had bled out from his face and he looked harder, taller, more threatening, even. Good. Masks down, finally. The King was tired of pretending.

“I'll admit that at first, with the rain, and the dark, I hadn't quite placed you,” he said, closing in on him until they were face to face, “But this morning, in full light? I'm sorry, but there are some faces you just don't forget. Like, for instance, that of the most wanted criminal in all of Thedas.”

The Apostate was staying silent, but his eyes had turned dangerously hard. He was letting him speak, certainly trying to predict his next move. Alistair easily spotted his closed fist, and the way his magic had flared up in him, making the air around his shoulders vibrate and cool down. Was he going to attack? 

Alistair tensed up, ready to cleanse the very essence of magic out of him with a spell purge, but instead the Apostate just closed his eyes and breathed hard, before trying to push past him, jaw set.

“Congratulations, Your Grace, but we don't have time for this,” he said, and his voice was much harsher than it had been before, “If you have something to do about it, do it.”

Alistair didn't even try to resist the urge to grab his arm and stop him right in his tracks. 

“Listen to me,” he growled, digging his fingers mercilessly in his forearm, “Do you think it's smart to wisecrack me, you murderous piece of...?”

“No, _you_ listen to me!”, the Apostate furiously interrupted him.

He sharply turned to face him, not making a move to escape his steely grip, but staring him straight in the eyes, mouth thin and hard as he snapped back:

“We are the only two people left out here who know what happened to Léonie. If we get caught, who knows what's going to happen to her? Now,” he added, low, menacing, leaning in until he was merely inches from his face, “I could leave anytime, and you'd be powerless to stop me...”

“Is that so?” Alistair scoffed, feeling his lips twist in an ugly smile, but the other man just went on.

“But we stand a better chance together,” he said, leaning back, “We still have days of road ahead, if we want to make it back to the Keep, and you can bet your kingly ass those men are still looking for us. And what about Maeva? Don't you think she'll be informed we escaped, that she hasn't already sent her Wardens after us?”

Alistair still did not let go of his arm, but he leaned back too, swallowing hard against the big ball of rage that was stuck across his throat.

“But you already know, that, right?” Anders pursued, “If you knew who I am, like you say you did, then why didn't you do something about it before now?”

This time, Alistair let go of him, but it was more of an angry shove than a simple release.

“You've got some nerve, to question my reasons,” he snarled.

Nervously, he wiped a hand over his mouth, trying to contain himself. _Because of course it did_ , the Calling had started to chant harder, like flaring up along his anger, making his head hurt even more than it already did. Maker, what a giant mess. How could he have expected any of this to go well? He had been ready to make his final journey to the Deep Roads, Maker's breath! Some part of him had been reassured, at peace, even, with the thought, like it was usual to be, when confronted with the natural order of things. But he couldn't even be granted the simple honor of a Warden death, could he? Not only did he have to get kidnapped and loose his Guard -the thought of it stabbed painfully at his gut- but this all had to happen alongside Anders the fucking Apostate!

“I made a choice,” he said slowly, as the monster in front of him crossed his arms, standing tall but with a defensive posture, a grim silhouette against the darkening sky, “The Warden-Commander was missing, so there were more urgent matters. You were not going anywhere, and I had my whole Guard with me. We were going to check what was wrong, and then sack you right after, rest assured.”

That wasn't the whole truth, but he sure as the Void wasn't going to share the rest with him. 

The truth was that Alistair had hesitated: with the Civil War finally over, he knew that finding the Apostate would only serve to reopen wounds barely starting to heal. He could picture it so easily: the Mages rallied under the Inquisition's banner would claim his head, but of course so would Kirkwall. Whatever pro-Circle force remained, particularly in Orlais, would rise up instantly as well, waving his crimes high as a confirmation of their position. And what about the Anderfels? Their whittling monarchy could be called into question, as everyone knew the Apostate had roots there. Alistair, of course, would have to take position as well, as King of the nation who bore the criminal's birth and growth. 

Anders wasn't just a man: he was a symbol of the Mage-Templar war, and to have him reappear just as it was finally starting to wane down would be like fanning dying ambers, Alistair was certain of it: soon they would find themselves with as tall a fire to quench as the one the Apostate had first started.

And then, of course, there were the Wardens. Anders had been conscripted, so if the First Warden ever decided, for some reason, to claim authority on him, he could. And even if there hadn't been any news from Weisshaupt in months, Alistair wouldn't put it past Adrian Vincent to manifest out of the blue just for that. That man was as elusive as a ghost, and as unpredictable as the wind, just the right thing to blow on the sparks from the raging wildfire until it spread over all of Thedas.

So when, under the morning light, he had realized who was standing before him, Alistair had really had no idea what to do with that information. He had stared at him, his long, dark blond hair, sharp features ingeniously concealed behind a thick beard, and he had seen the aftermath of Kirkwall, the vacant stare of Provisional Viscount Bran as he showed him around a city wretched by grief and littered with ruins. But he had also seen the Hinterland fields, marred beyond repair by deserters of both camps after the Conclave explosion, and thought: “ _Maker help me, it's going to start all over again_ ”. So he had bit his tongue and hadn't even told his men, but they were smart, and some of them had already started to suspect, probably just waiting for his word before acting. Anders, for himself, hadn't even feared he knew, apparently. As expected: no matter what he, himself, thought of it, Alistair was still the King, and he had been for the last ten years. He had played the Game in Orlais and negotiated with the Qunari. He had stood between the Mages and the Templars and raised his country up from the graveyard of the Fifth Blight. It may have taken him some training, years of it, even, but he knew how to hide what he was thinking, at least until he could figure out what to do.

Now, it was much harder, though, to show restraint. It was just the two of them against Maker knew how many enemies, and as mad as that made Alistair, the fucker was right: their chances of survival were thin enough without them having to split up. And if they were right, and the Commander's disappearance had something, anything, even remotely to do with Corypheus, the danger was big enough to dwarf even the worst options he had listed.

“ _Maker, Aedan,_ ” he couldn't help but think, “ _How I wish you had listened to me. This sort of shit would never have happened, with you as King_.”

“Once we sort out what happened to Léonie,” Anders had started up again, his long hair all mussed up by the fighting and the wind, “you can do whatever you want to me. Arrest me, execute me, I couldn't care less. But right now, we have other priorities, don't you think?” 

He stood straighter and his dark eyes didn't budge from his own, as he added: “We're both Wardens, are we not?”

And that, he would have done better to keep to himself. 

Alistair was on him in a second, grabbing at the collar of the bloody shirt he had on, baring his teeth like the bastard dog-lord he knew he was. 

“Don't you even fucking _dare_ say that word again!” he snarled, whatever control he had left collapsing like thin paper in front of a flame, “You have no right to it!”

The man's eyes had widened some, and he was making no move to defend himself, which was perfect, because Alistair was not done. Pictures of Duncan, Riordan, Cousland and all the others who had lost their lives fighting Darkspawn seemed to loom over him: that the Apostate could claim any sort of kinship with them was the last straw.

“Where was your Victory, in Kirkwall, Apostate?” he kept going, feeling all the exhaustion and the grief he felt turn into pure, icy hatred, “Where was your Sacrifice? I don't seem to recall it was you who died for your cause in the Chantry explosion!”

The Apostate's magic was starting to seep out of him, to contort and dilate the air around them, he could feel it, but he didn't care.

“The words," Alistair growled at him, tightening his hold on Anders' shirt, face only inches from his and eyes burning with spite, "Do you even remember them?" 

The mind blast caught him in full force, but not fast enough that he couldn't counter it with a wave of Templar fire. The clash of their power still pushed him off of him, and Anders raised his hands as Alistair went for the Tevinter dagger at his side.

“Do you think I would be here if I didn't?” Anders barked at him, voice reduced to a furious rumble as magic lifted his hair around his head and whipped at his bloody clothes, “You arrogant, two-faced coward, where was your Vigilance, when your own people was starving at the gates of the Free Marches?”

His words hit him like a slap, and Alistair almost raised his dagger too late to deflect the bolt the mage had shot at him. It heated up the blade as it connected with it, but thankfully the thick leather handle was runed and kept the lightning from taking his flesh.

“Where was you own oath, Your Majesty, when Meredith was going insane and slaughtering the Mages?”

This time, he was prepared, and when the second bolt left the mage's extended hand, Alistair pushed forward, dodging it quickly as he closed in on him.

“You may have been there, when the Hero stopped the Blight, “ Anders said, lifting his barrier, “but you sure as the Void did nothing to clean up after him!”

Alistair's blade collided with the energy barrier in a painful burst of power, but it wasn't enough to push him backwards, only to make him grit his teeth and groan in effort to stay in place and keep his arm from shaking as the sharp edge of the dagger fizzled furiously against it. Something inside his chest had twisted, and that ancient pain only served to fan his flames further.

“Don't talk about him!” Alistair roared, pushing forward with all his strength, “You don't know anything about him, or me, or anything we tried to do!”

With a strained growl, he released another wave of anti-magic and felt the barrier give up under his arm, but just as he thought he was going to get to Anders, a burst of arcane power lifted him off his feet, and he barely managed to roll and regain some balance as he was thrown backwards on the ground.

They stayed like that for a moment, panting, Alistair crouching in the grass with his dagger still raised, and Anders standing with his arms outreached, sparks of power running and cracking between his fingers.

“Stop it,” the mage hissed, chest heaving, “This is useless. Can't you see?”

Alistair slowly stood up, keeping his dagger upright and his eyes focused on him. He could feel the Taint in the Apostate and it was making him sick: how could someone like him have deserved it, when so many good men and women had died just by it touching their lips?

“While we bicker like idiots, Léonie is being taken Maker knows where,” the Apostate was still saying, “and Maeva can do as she pleases with the rest of the Wardens.”

Shaking his head to get a strand of hair off his face, he added:

“Your men have given everything so you could escape. Are you going to let them die in vain?”

The pain was horrendous on Alistair's bruised cheekbone, from the slap of energy he had just received, and the vision in his left eye had started to go blurry. The rage he felt in his chest was turning into wave after wave of powerless frustration, and he sharply lowered his weapon.

“ _Make the hard decisions._ ”

“Fuck this,” he groaned, wiping his brow angrily as he let go of his defensive stance.

He shoved the dagger back into the lacing of his pants, and took a few, weary steps towards the place where he thought the cliff was. He could barely see the edge of it anymore, the sky had gotten so dark. There still was light on the horizon to the west, but the sun was hidden between a mass of heavy clouds. On the coast towards that setting sun, miles away and yet sharing the same sea, stood the weathered walls of Highever, within which both Duncan and Aedan had been born. What would they have thought of him, right now, attacking like a rabid dog instead of using his brain? 

Alistair's mind felt even more useless than usual, all fog and exhaustion and remnants of anger. With the corner of his eye, he saw the Apostate lower his arms and comb his fingers through his hair, still trying to steady his breathing as his magic slowly receded.

“It's too dark to go on, anyway,” Alistair said, standing over the sea, feeling its salty breath slither mercilessly under his ragged, stolen clothes.

Turning his back on it, he walked away from the cliff, towards the hilly plains. Finding a big, grey rock emerging from the ground at the bottom of a slope, he sat down heavily against it, pressing his back to its cold surface. Slowly, looking straight at the Apostate, who was still standing and following his every move with suspicious care, he took the dagger out, turned it in his hand, and sunk it deep into the ground in front of him.

“I am going to sleep,” he then said, crossing his arms.

Anders took a pause, long and seemingly perplex, and then sighed. Sitting down too in the grass of the hill, he pulled his jacket closer to himself and watched in silence as the invisible sun set behind the cliffs. 

Of course, Alistair never closed his eyes, keeping them locked on the Apostate, as darkness slowly swallowed them both. That night, he found very little rest in his watchful vigil.

  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, this has been a hard chapter to figure out. Thank you to all those who read, left kudos and commented until now, you've all made me feel so blessed!  
> Special thanks, of course to the lovely cupofrenchtea for her patience and the precious sleeptime she lost (and is still going to lose, probably) to my rambling. Love you, Chief!


	7. The Moors

 

 

 

The worst thing about the weather had to be that is wasn't even all that bad, actually. 

Now, sure, it wasn't really a late blue sky, one of those warm, sunny days that sometimes surprised Ferelden even further into autumn. But there was a little sun, when it managed to valiantly pierce the heavy could veil with a few golden rays. When it happened, Alistair could see a patch of light appear over the grass somewhere on the hilly moors, then pick up a pace as the clouds shifted up above, pushed around by the sky-wind. The sun spot then ran along the slopes, up and over them, like a big yellow dog giving chase to some rabbit before disappearing in a fold of the terrain. But despite that little occasional brightness, the air was still heavy and humid, much too chilly for the little clothes Alistair had on his back, especially since they were drenched. Perhaps with a nice dry cape, it could have been an enjoyable morning, but right then Alistair was shivering, the smallest breeze of the cool Waking Wind almost enough to make his teeth rattle. Which was a terrible idea, considering how much his face hurt. 

When the sun had risen, that morning, the King had found himself completely wet from head to toe, stolen clothes practically dripping dew. The water had soaked the grass and rocks during the night, heavy humidity rising up from the ground and condensing into fat droplets that shone bright silver in the dawn light, catching on ling bushes, turning them into grapples of glass-like little pearls. There wasn't fog where they were, because the sea-wind had easily blown it away, but as soon as they got some altitude, he could see long patches of it in-between the hills to the South, like so many grey, torn-up pieces of cloth entangled around the sharp rocks emerging from the ground. 

The only, albeit non-negligible, advantage of such a misty morning was that they had been able to drink a little, collecting that heavy morning dew from the coarse vegetation in the crook of their palms. There was no underestimating how quick and cruel thirst was to settle in, in the wild, especially after a fight. Any other time, Alistair would have used a piece of cloth to gather the liquid more easily, like Duncan had taught him all those years ago, but he wasn't too keen on sucking on some other man's sweat and blood to do it now. Especially not a dead one, at that. With the corner of his eye, Alistair had watched the Apostate kneel down and collect the sweet water in the palm of his hand as well, looking over to the sea, brows furrowed in what looked like deep thinking, as he drank. What could possibly be going through that man's head? After their little... skirmish, the day before, Alistair felt like he needed to remain cautious. 

When him and the Apostate picked up walking again, at a pressing pace, a silence as heavy and unshakable as those strips of mist clinging to the crevasses hung low between them. That suited Alistair fine: if they could avoid speaking for the entire duration of their journey, he would have been content. One less thing to worry about, perhaps. Was that really too much to ask? The man was walking behind him and he could feel his presence there, unnervingly close. Not only did Alistair have be wary of the two riders still looking for them - if they weren't already much more than two - he also had to keep an eye on the criminal. After all, what better way for Anders to escape capture than to try and off him now, when there was just the two of them, in the middle of nowhere? His grand words from the day before hadn't convinced Alistair, no, not at all. A simple moment of inattention, a shove, and the King would be down that precipice, so he wasn't exactly keen on trust. A bitter taste came back up in his mouth at the memory of the Apostate's words, and how unforgiving his eyes had looked as he spat them at him.

“ _Vigilance?_ ” he thought, chewing on that sour memory, “ _I'll show you vigilance, you blighted criminal._ ”

The matter was not at all eased by the lack of sleep he suffered, and his mind wasn't the only thing remembering their exchange: his body was sore. His face, especially, was giving him pain. A lot of it.

The situation there was getting completely out of control: his left eye had all but gone blind, because it was so swollen. He could feel it watering, periodically dripping a burning tear down his face, and he had to constantly dab his cheek with the hem of his sleeve, which was never a pleasant experience, because it stung just to hover over it. As always with such an injury, the day after was only worse, flesh so tender it sent white sparks at the corner of his impaired eye in short, dull pushes, deep and distracting, like his heart was beating up there, all the way to the back of his teeth and along his jaw and temple. That would play in his disadvantage if it ever came to a fight again, he knew: another slap from a mind blast would probably outright knock him out, at this point. 

He could still take the Apostate, though, he believed. Could he? He threw the man a gaze over his shoulder, and Anders either did not see him, or pretended not to, because he didn't look back, squinting at the hills instead. He looked tired as well, mouth a tight line, and eyes sunk deep. He hadn't slept either, Alistair knew, and if the Calling behaved the same in both of them, it must have given him a bad time as well, because it had driven the King all but mad over the night. Of course, when sleeping, there were the nightmares, but having to spend a few long hours in total silence and darkness, with nothing to distract him from the blasted singing apart from the cold and humidity, and the thought of his fallen men, well. It hadn't exactly been a pleasant experience.

So it was much better that the Apostate was keeping quiet, because Alistair's patience was worn even thinner, now. As much as that enraged him, he could not afford to go off like he had the day before, so he tried to keep his mind busy by attempting to figure out their location, and estimate how many miles they had on Vigil's Keep. The road was easy, with no risk of getting lost. Amaranthine was East: they just had to follow the cliff towards the raising sun. But how much further were they? Could they encounter a settlement, a place for him to get more immediate armed support? Surely if he managed to alert someone, he could get word to the nearest guard fast enough. And then Maeva would see how much of a bad decision she had taken when she had ordered him and his men captured.

So whenever they gained some altitude -which was often, as the cliff-side was a succession of steep ups-and-downs- Alistair looked around himself, trying to figure out exactly where they were. He had traveled a lot, in his life, and even more since he'd become King, but he wasn't very familiar with this part of the Coastlands, unfortunately. He knew the West of it more, like Highever's Saltlands, or the Stormcoast spanning from West Hill to Glasmor. No surprise as to why. 

Fergus had gladly answered his request to show him around the Cousland lands, after the Blight, so Alistair's travels had taken him more often there, than in Amaranthine. It had soothed him, on the long run, to get acquainted with the land that had seen Aedan's birth and youth, and to hear his brother's florid tales of both their childhoods and the region. He had ridden with the Teyrn through the Salt-fields, over the black granite of Sarim's Wall, and across Elethea's Yelding, the long beach where the Cousland Teyrna had bent the knee to Calenhad, receiving ruling over the land and Netcutter, the Cousland family sword, which had been wielded by warriors the likes of Haelia the Wolf-Slayer, and had gone on to end the Archdemon Urthemiel in the hand of the Hero... Alistair prudently stepped over a bell-heather bush and let out a sharp, annoyed breath at the pang of pain that still, after all these years, took him at the bare thought of that day. Luckily his leg didn't play tricks on him, as it sometimes still did even now, if he got too over-flooded with memories. Just to be safe, he made the deliberate effort to breathe deeply, step a little further away from the edge of the cliff, and focus back on his attempt at mapping out their location. He was tired, after all. One was never too sure.

There wasn't much reason to visit the Moors, anyway. South of Amaranthine, all the way to Denerim, the coast on the Ocean was full of creeks and fishy bouts of sea: Grey Shrimp bay, for one, or the splendid mouth of Hafter River, with its large delta of semi-submerged foreshore, long plains of tidal bars and mud rich with solens and sweet, fleshy clams. But where they were now, West of the Beacon, there really wasn't much to see, apart from the miles of steep Emerald Cliffs they were walking alongside of. Some scholars with a knack for the drama loved to say that the thirty year-old Cousland Rebellion, during the Towers Age, had left the land between the two rival cities scorched and naked, but Alistair doubted the interpretation. It was more likely that the strong Eastern Wind from the Amaranthine Ocean hit that part of the coast harder and more relentlessly than others, squeezing itself in the gulf from the thin strait between Ostwick and Brandel's Reach. Crop growth was impeded by it: apart from some crooked apple yards and the occasional stubborn root farmer, it was the most deserted part of the Coastlands. Not bad for herding, though, but there were only so many sheep and cows, in a region, not nearly enough to cover such a vast, barely inhabited piece of shore.

They arrived to an edge, where the cliff turned at a sharp angle. A small bay unraveled under them, not big enough to be marked on a map, and still not helping him name the blighted place. There was a thin strip of sand down there, barely enough to qualify as a beach, but it had to be plentiful or protected from the wind, because there were birds everywhere. Even from up there, he could see entire flocks of sanderlings and greenshanks foraging for crabs and worms. Seagulls and cormorants loudly let go of their high-pitched laughter, landing expertly in the crevasses of the cliffs where they had nested, carried by the sea-wind, and Alistair repressed a sneeze and focused on his pace, not liking at all how light-headed he was starting to feel. 

“How long do you think this is going to take us?” the mage suddenly asked, and Alistair almost flinched: his voice sounded terribly loud after the long silence they had kept.

The sun was still hiding behind the clouds, making the sky blindingly white, having him squint, and his head had started spinning a little. From hunger, maybe, or from his sleepless night, or his throbbing face, he didn't know. All that he knew was that it wasn't making him keener on idle talk.

“Why?” he snapped back, “Is this too tedious for you, Apostate?”

The other man sighed sharply, and Alistair focused on trying to discern the other side of the cliff across the bay, to spot any possible danger ahead, hoping the other man was going to take his cue and keep quiet.

“I was wondering, is all,” the mage said again, dry, before adding: “It took us half a day of hard riding to get here. What was that, twenty miles? Fifteen?“

Alistair grumbled back some noise of assent: his own calculations had amounted to around the same. After they had been taken, he knew he and his Guard had been moved, but it couldn't have been much further along the coast, because his face had barely had time to start swelling after he had been knocked out, and there had been a lot of prisoners to deal with, for their captors, far too many for easy travel. They had also needed to fetch and move their horses, probably... Where was Provola, now? In the hands of their kidnappers, alongside his men, in all likelihood.

“I'd say we have three days of walking ahead of us,” the Apostate went again, ripping him from his train of thought, “Not to mention we are going to have to find supplies at some point, which will slow us down.”

Alistair kept at his walking, still sullen. He knew all that. Actually, his stomach was already starting to give him a bad time: it had to be around ten now, judging from the height of the sun he could reckon despite it being covered, and he hadn't eaten anything for an entire day, now. That blighted Warden appetite wasn't making anything easier, of course, so Alistair had already started thinking out what they could salvage. Maybe some roots. A few eggs? If they managed to make their way down to the beach, they were sure to find something.

“So?” he snapped, annoyed at the thought of having to coordinate even further with Anders, “All the more reason to shut up and walk, right?”

“So...” the Apostate started up again, ignoring his last remark, like he was determined to have a blighted conversation, “I am worried whatever happened to Léonie, it might be already over when we arrive at the Keep.”

Oh, Maker, what did he want from him? Alistair refused to turn around and search the man's features, so instead, he just asked sharply:

“Have you got any more optimistic thoughts, like that?”

For good measure, and hoping once they got through this, they could resume their silent travel, he added: 

“We don't even know who took the Commander, much less what they might want with her. You seemed convinced it had something to do with Corypheus, back at the Keep. By the way, how did you gather that?”

Anders took a few seconds before answering, and Alistair allowed himself a little moment of dark satisfaction. Now, who was uncomfortable? He laid his hand on a tall rock and prudently went around it: the cliff-edge was much more jagged now, practically no grass left under his feet, only sharp boulders forming bumps and corridors of unexpected steepness. Maybe a rock slide had happened here? All the more reason to be careful.

“I've done some research, when I heard the Calling,” the Apostate finally answered, not very generously, before retorting: “How did _you_?”

The nerve on this man, really. It made Alistair want to shut him up, shove down his throat that he, unlike him, was very much legitimate in all of this. He had nothing to hide.

“Her Worship the Inquisitor told me,” Alistair answered, taking his most formal tone, the one he used to address his Council when he wanted them to just shut up and listen, for once, “Lady Lavellan seems convinced this entire situation with the Wardens is part of a larger plan, involving that monster.”

But he didn't know much more. 

The Inquisitor had real sympathies for him, he could tell, and quite a few of her organization's members were personal acquaintances, if not friends. But even Leliana had not gone into much detail about what they knew of the creature who had destroyed Haven, at least not with him. His own spies and scholars, in Denerim, had done their best to make their own investigation, but everything had already been swiped, every tree shaken, every knowledgeable man or woman recruited into the Holy Ranks : Lavellan had done her job well. It was a little frustrating, but he understood her strategy in this: if too many parties other than hers got involved, which they were sure to do if they knew how grievous the danger was, a game of push and pull for influence over the Inquisition was sure to take place. With their power, it would have been so easy, for Lavellan and her men, to tilt the balance of Thedas one way or the other, in the wake of a fight: it was no wonder all present forces would compete for her sympathy, or try instead to crush her down. He, for one, had been more than suspicious of the organization at first, but he had read the books, and studied their behaviour, and in all honesty, he had been reassured fast enough. When he had asked for their expertise in the matter of those mysterious Venatori cultists roaming his halls -a good occasion to test their inclination towards the Crown- their answer had been swift and efficient, even if they had taken their prisoners with them, leaving him no chance to figure out his attacker's motivations. Annoying, but reasonable. He had been the one asking, after all.

Then, of course, there had been that disaster at Redcliffe, which thankfully, Lavellan had managed to placate before it spiraled completely out of control. How close to ruining all their efforts for peace they had passed, how enraged Alistair had been at the little choice he had had left in the matter, all but torn between the Guerrins' rightful yet irritatingly insistent demand to reclaim their land from whatever Tevinter nonsense Fiona had agreed to, and his reluctance in denying the Mages further shelter against the dying Templar Order. Such relief, he had felt, when the Inquisitor had called them to join her in Skyhold. The ideal compromise, one which he could never have bargained, without her.

When they had also aided in the establishment of the Jader negotiations with Orlais, Alistair had gladly sent Queen Maryn's Avenger to Skyhold as a sign of thanks for all of it, but not expecting or even wanting closer collaboration. Such a force, he had decided, was better kept independent. 

So, in the matter of Corypheus, he had been left mostly with discordant information, and rumors, some of them quite boggling. But he already had his arms more than full only dealing with his own politics: so really, he was glad someone was taking this matter in their own hands and dedicating such massive means and focus to it. If Lavellan knew much more about their adversary, though, she hadn't felt at liberty to share it with him. 

“She seems to think that because Corypheus is some sort of Darkspawn, he could have used the Taint to attack the Wardens,” he added, almost thinking aloud, at this point, “It sounds mad, and yet...”

And yet, what else could have caused all Wardens to hear the Calling at the same time? The last time Alistair had ever felt anything remotely similar - his mouth tightened into a grim line at the memory - it was towards the end of the Blight, when the nightmares had gotten so bad, him and Cousland were barely able to sleep at all, anymore. In the midst of the blurred, bloody tangle of horror that haunted them both almost every night, there were those notes, pieces of a melody, haunting and terrifying, the same one that had ghosted at the corners of his mind ever since he drank from the Cup. He recognized them now, as the Song echoed clearly inside his head, louder and more distinct than ever before, with its intricate entanglement of eerie almost-voices. And on that accursed day, when Aedan's back, curved under the weight of his wounds, was getting further and further away from him, the Archdemon was screeching, and underneath the piercing screams, he had heard fragments of that song again, so enticing, calling to him, making him want to throw down his sword and vow himself to the darned thing, to swear fealty to the Dragon, to join the ranks of its army... And yet, even then, the Song had never been as clear as it was now. 

“But what would Corypheus want with us?” Alistair said, frowning hard, focusing on his words to push the memories away, “And how does the Commander's disappearance tie into all this?”

There were those, and many more questions, swimming in his head. Why would Constable Maeva set them up? Why was she working with Tevinter soldiers? It sure looked like she had something to do with hew own Commander's demise, a thought that filled Alistair with icy anger. Constable and Commander were meant to be linked by a bond of eternal service. Duncan often spoke to him of it, and only years later had Alistair understood why he was doing that, what he was grooming him for...

“Do you think both Maeva and the Tevinter who kidnapped us work for Corypheus?” the Apostate asked, and Alistair slowed down, eyes going a little wide as the wheels in his head whirred and clicked. 

Tevinter activity in Ferelden had really been a thorn in his side, in those last few months, ever since Haven. Those Venatori, whatever they were, the thankfully-failed attempt of recruiting the Rebel Mages to the Imperium's side... When he had investigated the attempt at infiltration of his palace in Denerim, despite his lack of prisoners, he had found himself hitting a wall of cold rebuttal from Minrathous, and had learned nothing. Alistair had become very worried: was the Imperium making an attempt at conquest? Were those the first signs of incoming conflict, on an international scale, Tevinter hoping to take advantage from the chaos of the Breach and the Civil War to make a move on an ancient enemy?

But maybe it all had something to do with the Elder one.

“But why would anyone be on that madman's side?” he asked the ground under his feet, “Why Tevinter? It can't be Archon Radonis, can it? Even he is not that crazy. Also, not the man to bow his head to anyone, especially not a Spawn, or whatever that monster is...”

Anders said nothing, then, and Alistair threw him a little glance, as discretely as possible. He looked... hesitating. He recognized the expression: a man weighting his options, unsure if his interlocutor was deserving of trust.

“Do you perhaps happen to know something more?” he pressed, then, because Maker forbid the Apostate thought he was in position to keep any sort of information to himself. 

Anders didn't answer and Alistair frowned harder. Oh, but he did know something, then. As soon as he was done climbing this ridge, the Apostate was going to see the extent of his skills of information gathering. This rock slope was a little steeper, so Alistair had to grab onto some crevasses to heave himself up the biggest asperities of it. He got to a flatter surface, and looked down. They were right over the beach now, he could see big piles of algae littering it, deposited there by the tide and the waves. 

He was ready to turn around and... _persuade_ the Apostate to spit out whatever he knew, but suddenly, his head spun, the sky and the sea melting together in a nauseating blurry, and he couldn't stop himself from putting a hand on the rock closest to him, leaning on it for support. Looking at the edge of the cliff, really not far enough from his feet, he let out a groan: all of his head hurt, now, and it was making him black out, right there and then. Really, this was spiraling out of reason. The mage was looking at him, he could feel it, so he pushed himself off the rock, teeth gritted, and tried to stand straighter. Showing such weakness was way too dangerous: what if the Apostate decided to take his chance now? 

“Are you sure you don't want me to heal you?” Anders asked instead, much to Alistair's surprise, voice sounding unconcerned, as if he were more annoyed by the entire situation than he was preoccupied.

He wasn't as annoyed as Alistair, that, the King could guarantee.

“I'm fine,” he grumbled back, trying to stay focused on his feet and not to slip on some gravel.

“Sure,” the mage said, deadpan, “Tell me, then: how many seagulls are flying overhead? Look up for me, would you?”

What kind of stupid...? But alright, he'd do it, in only just to make him shut up. He took his precautions, though, keeping his distance: he wasn't going to get pushed off a cliff because he was counting birds in the sky like an idiot. The simple act of looking up made Alistair's head spin again, and he had to squint hard against the white clouds, outreaching his hand to find support on the stone wall. Okay, he saw a few gulls, high up there, flying in pairs.

“Uh...” he slurred, “six?”

“Right,” Anders scoffed, sarcastic, “Fit as a fiddle.”

He crossed his arms and stood there, looking at him with an annoyed expression, before stating matter-of-factually: “Your cheekbone is broken, Your Grace. ”

Oh. Now that he said it, it didn't sound all that improbable: it really hurt blighted hard, throbbing so much it made him nauseous. But knowing it didn't make it any better, on the contrary: it only managed to get Alistair more pissed.

“Alright,” he shrugged, standing straight again, or trying his best to, “Thanks for the information. Much obliged.”

His own voice sounded distant in his ears, like muffled by cloth. Anders sighed, an exasperated, sharp blowing of air out of his nose.

“I need you in fighting conditions,” he said, “Maker, just come here.”

He extended his hand towards him, and Alistair reeled back, involuntarily setting his shoulders to defend himself.

“You think I'd want your hands on me, you bloody murderer?” he bit at him, standing ready to fight, low and tense. 

Anders raised his hands in an disinterested shrug, then, but he was very irritated, Alistair could tell.

“Great,“ the mage said, irritation clearly audible in his voice, “Fine. Just one last thing: how many seagulls, now?”

Alistair scoffed, but his eyes went back up. Maybe now he was going to leave him alone?

“Erm, fou...?”

Moving much faster than anticipated, Anders took his jaw in his hand, and wasn't delicate about it. Alistair's face felt like it snapped back into place under the wave of painfully cold healing magic that rushed out of the mage's palm. It left his cheek painless, albeit completely numb, and when surprise got to his expression, his left eye flew open same as the right. With a long groan, Alistair stepped back again, holding a hand up to his brow.

“There you go,” Anders said, voice annoyingly blank, “Done.”

As Alistair looked back up at him, he even added, with a cock of his eyebrow: “No need to make such a fuss about it.”

Shock gave in to rage in his chest, and Alistair's hands curled into fists.

“Alright, you fuck,” he growled, “You think this is funny?”

“A little,” Anders admitted, a tart smile on his lips, “But you're welcome, anyway.”

He then went past him, pulling himself up a tall rock terrace with ease, and looking much too satisfied with himself. Alistair could only watch as he reached the top, then looked down. The King's mouth was a little slack and his face was still all tingly, like if he had opened a door to the outside in the middle of winter, and the night air had come slap him in the face. 

“We can make a way down from here. Shall we?” Anders asked, squinting down the slope, like he was calculating a trajectory, before adding: “You need to eat something, Your Grace. You look half-dead.”

“And you...” Alistair started, but his mind was slowed, by the numbness of healing, or his fatigue, or just the remains of surprise still fogging his brain, so he wasn't quick enough to snap back at Anders before the Apostate disappeared down the slope, without waiting for his approval.

“You're going to look... full-dead,” Alistair finished, mumbling to himself, following suit, “If you ever try shit like this again.”

When he got to the edge, the Apostate was already down, and looking up, probably seeing if the King was following him. He only checked for a moment though, before turning away from the cliff-side, and towards the shore. The beach was far below, but the inclination wasn't too bad. Alistair set his jaw and angrily started to make his way down, watching his step so at to not roll down to the sand like an arse. Honestly, he already felt enough like one. 

Who the fuck did the man think he was?

When he got to the bottom of the slope, and his feet finally touched the sand, Alistair would have taken in the sight of the waves, roaring loudly right in front of him, if he wasn't still focused on Anders. The Apostate was already intent on looking in between some big wet rocks emerging from the ground, right along the swash line. The birds had scattered around them, like a crowd splitting open to let them through, and the man was bent down towards the wet sand, investigating the uneven surface of the slimy stone.

Had he no fear, to turn his back on him after the little trick he had pulled? Apparently not. 

Alistair felt more than a little cranky, even if the pain was gone. Maybe even more so, because he really felt better, and somehow Anders' efficiency made it all worse. Despite the great distaste the fact caused him, he had to admit he'd been more than apt, as he flexed his jaw a little, to test its recovered elasticity, and found it working just fine. The pain was but a memory, as was the swelling, and the cold numbness Anders' magic had given him was already receding. He had also managed to seal that nasty cut on his forehead, the one he'd gotten himself but smashing his head not so subtly on that first guard's nose.

Brilliant.

“You still haven't answered, you know?” Alistair called, having to speak much louder over the rumbling sound of both the waves and the wind as he made his way to the Apostate.

The current looked strong to the right, probably from a raising tide. Perhaps they would be wise to keep care not to remain stuck down there as the water level went higher. The waves crashing a few feet from him weren't too tall, but they were white-capped. The wind, much stronger down there, brushed the steam off the top of the biggest rolls, blowing a light mist towards the beach, that sometimes landed on Alistair's cheeks and lashes, making him blink.

The Apostate was kneeling down in the sand, now, looking around for a rock heavy enough to help him unseat the big limpets that covered the reef. He stopped his search with a sigh, and looked up at him. Alistair had gotten much closer, enough to see how fair his brown eyes were, almost gold, in shade, when they found his. He saw it so well because the Apostate's face was to the sky, and the white light from above was making his pupil shrink tight, leaving plenty of space for Alistair to see the color around them.

Anders the Apostate, whose hands were wet with the blood of hundreds, had amber eyes. A simple detail Alistair had failed to notice, up until now. Was it odd that knowing that made him queasy, infused him with a strange mixture of unease and anger?

He wished he had never gotten in the position to find out.

“I will,” the Apostate finally answered, and his voice sounded tired, even more so than earlier.

His eyes finally left Alistair's, then, to go back to the rock he had ended up finding. Brushing the sand off of its cold surface with his long fingers, he raised it and brought it down hard on a limpet hanging to the stone. Picking up the rounded thing from where it fell, the Apostate held it in the palm of his hand, watching the grey muscle of the creature ripple and contract. His look seemed lost way beyond the poor beast's agony.

“I'll explain everything,” he said, low, almost a whisper, and Alistair stood there, looking at the kneeling man, with the wind whipping at his torn clothes, and the Waking Sea blowing her cold and wet breath at the back of his neck. 

Yes, the Apostate was going to explain himself. 

Maker knew he had a lot of that left to do.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the huge hiatus, everyone! The holiday season really messed up both me and my schedule, so I had to take some time to set things straight. I hope to be far more regular again from now on!
> 
> Thank you all for your kind words and support!


	8. Oysters and Wine

 

 

 

_They were sitting in Léonie's study, as they so often did. Big logs crumbled in the fireplace with jolly “pop”s and “crack”s, a welcome song in stark contrast with that of the icy rain still hitting the windows. Ser Pounce kept climbing on Anders' knees, to try and claw at the oysters neatly aligned on the ash-wood platter the Commander had elegantly disposed on the table, and even if Anders kept pulling him down, the little demon persisted, stubbornly stuck in an endless feline struggle._

_“Varel always had some sent to me, when he supplied the Keep,” Léonie murmured, eyes soft, as she poured them both a cup of wine, “I suppose Garevel wishes to maintain the tradition.”_

_It was a Treviso white, crisp and fragrant, and Anders thanked her with a small nod as he opened his journal flat on the dark oak table, blowing softly on the tip of his freshly-cut quill. The memories of their fallen still stung, but Amaranthine was healing, and so was the Keep, and so were they._

_“You know, I've never had oysters, before,” Anders admitted, a little fascinated, in truth, by the pearlescent inside of the shells, and the mysteriously intricate mass held within._

_“Really?” Léonie mused, before frowning, as the reason why he would never had had the chance suddenly sunk into her._

_After all, Kinloch Hold was many things, but a “culinary capital” wasn't exactly one of those._

_“These are from Grey Shrimp Bay,” she explained, then, making use of her customary reserve when it came to the matter of Anders' past, “Not as good as Val Chevin's, but well. We're in no position to complain, are we?”_

_The Commander had gotten her hands on a few Antivan lemons as well, which she had sliced in arcs so thin you could see through them, and then displayed in a delicate curve at the edge of the wooden tray, so that they now looked like a small yellow hand-fan some Duchesse had nonchalantly forgotten on a marble mantle-piece._

_“Anders, you of all people know the value of doing things well, once you set up to do them,” she had chuckled, when he had gently made fun of the meticulousness of her display._

_Warden-Commander Lellac was a woman of minutiae, and whether it came to people's mouths as a compliment or a more or less thinly veiled word of mockery, she always accepted the remark with her slim, knowing smile, and a dash of true Orlesian false modesty._

_Shushing the cat off the edge of the table one more time, Léonie showed Anders how to separate the weak flesh from its shell with the help of a thin knife, and then how to tilt the creature backwards against her bottom lip, to let it slide whole into her mouth._

_“Like the bottom of a cup,” she smiled with a happy sigh, putting the empty shell back upside-down on the tray, “That, you know of, don't you?”_

_Anders snorted at her joke, but sat watching the oyster, for a while, nudging at it with the point of his knife. The soft muscle contracted at the barest touch, as if running from contact._

_“Isn't it a little sad that they're alive?” he asked, poking at the thin black fringe surrounding the creature, which he thought looked eerily like a hem of black lace at the edge of a crumpled grey dress._

_“It would be,” she shrugged, picking up another shell, and squeezing precisely two drops of lemon onto it, “if only they weren't so good. Come on, try it.”_

_She smiled again, thick lips curving up foxily, as the flames reflected golden on her dark brown skin._

_“Like many things, it only gets harder the more you stare at it,” she added, and Anders squinted at her, because, really, had she just...?_

_As often, with the Commander, it was impossible to tell, and so there was nothing left for him to do but to breathe in deep, look down on the poor oyster one last time, and knock it back. When it slid on his tongue, it was really unlike anything Anders had ever tasted before, cold and salty and silky smooth in his mouth, with a strong mineral edge to its flavour he could only compare to the fresh tang of some mountain spring-waters._

_He could see what all the fuss was about._

_“I love it,” Anders declared, and Léonie playfully clapped her hands once, in response, as if they had reached some sort of an important conclusion._

_“Then something good has come out of today,” she said, before taking a sip of her wine, teeth flashing at him once more over the edge of her cup._

_She got to her letters, eventually, and him to his journal. Silently sharing space, like this, as they each worked on their separate task, was so reassuring, to Anders, much more than Léonie realized, he was certain. At the Circle, there was no such thing as the simple luxury of choosing how and with whom to work and spend time with, so -even if not all company had been entirely disagreeable - this was a novel, invigorating feeling._

_As he started writing, pen scratching the pages full of ink, line after line of an idea he was chasing, with the cat finally drifting off on his knees, Anders felt he was still smiling, soft and faint. The silver griffon on the clasp of his robe shone yellow in the firelight, reflection of the flames dancing nimbly in its eyes, making it look alive against the deep blue of the fabric it was pinned on. The rain hit the window, the fire cracked, and the taste of oysters and wine still hung pleasantly on his tongue. Anders distinctly remembered wondering if all of his days could resemble this one, from then on._

_He wouldn't have minded._

  


“So, what you're saying -if I get your meaning correctly- is that Corypheus is a Tevinter Magister.”

The King's voice tore Anders from his memory, and he nodded, slowly turning a round limpet shell between his fingers, to give himself some time to focus back on the present. The taste of raw mollusc wasn't at all unpleasant, and its mineral bite, salty and fresh, had reminded him vividly of that late evening in Vigil's Keep, and of the many others like it that he had spent in Léonie's silent company.

 _“Please be alright,”_ he silently prayed, picking up another limpet, and quickly washing it off in the shallow water that had collected in the hole he had dug in the sand on front of him.

Long gone were the warmth of the hearth and of a tentative friendship, in that moment. With the wet kiss of the Waking on his neck, and the salt-water's icy bite on his fingers, Anders found it almost hard to remember the feeling. Almost. 

With a small sigh, the Mage focused on the task of ripping off the bitter black blister at the edge of the limpet, and discarding it, before eating. He had not realized how hungry he really was, before, but now that he had managed to get some good bits down, he felt definitively better. Unwanted memories aside, he was more focused, too. 

Still not enough for him to sound clear to King Alistair, though, he supposed.

“But not only _a_ Tevinter Magister,” the man was adding, with a gesture of his hands towards the sea and the sand all around him, as if he was showing Anders something huge that simply wasn't there, “No, one of _the_ Tevinter Magisters. A _“you have brought Sin to Heaven, and doom upon all the world”_ , Golden-City-invading, cast-out-by-the-Maker-himself kind of Magister. Right?”

Anders nodded again, swallowing his mouthful. It did seem absurd, didn't it?

“The priest of Dumat, actually,” he still specified, for the sake of precision.

The look the King lifted to him, then, was full of the purest of scepticisms.

“And you expect me to buy it?” he simply asked, and honestly, who could blame him?

Unlike Anders, who had been more than happy to give his long legs a rest by sitting down on the damp shore, back leaning against one of the biggest reefs emerging from the sand, King Alistair had decided to stay up, and walk around restlessly. He had only knelt down at the edge of the waterline for a few seconds, earlier, to clean his stolen dagger in the shallow up-rush. As Anders started speaking, he had carefully scraped at any dry blood spots left on the blade with some sand, before drying it off on the side of his pants -seawater was a swift killer, for blades. But now that the Mage had finished his strange tale of secret prisons, blood rituals and ancient sentient Spawn waking up from deep slumbers, the King was just walking up and down the swash-line again, waving the sharp weapon around, and very visibly struggling with his explanation. A confused expression tensed his tired features, and his furrowed brows seemed fully unable to un-knot. 

Well, he wasn't entirely to blame for being restless and distrusting. Looking down, Anders dug absent-mindedly around in the sand with the tip of his fingers. The memories of the Warden prison were on him, and he didn't know what was harder: the then-distinct echo of Corypheus' horrid Calling - a chorus of eerie voices overwhelming his thoughts so entirely that Justice had taken over him - or the sight of Hawke's large back, still so fresh in his mind, and the booming sound of his fearless laughter shielding them all from doubt, like it always did, during the fight...

“I don't know if it's true,” Anders finally sighed, realizing his gaze had once more lost itself somewhere indistinct in front of him, “I only know what he himself told us, back then.”

Spotting a small dome of wet sand, on his left, the mage dug his fingers there, until they closed around the surface of a big clam. 

“ _He_ seemed to believe it, anyway,” he added, carefully brushing the sand off of the ridged, rust-coloured shell he'd collected.

When Anders raised his gaze again, the King was staring at the sea, arms crossed in front of himself, right-hand fingers distractedly brushing over his short beard, as he once more frowned at the green waves. 

As he was climbing down, earlier, Anders had wondered if the King was going to push him down for good, this time. Put a hand between his shoulder-blades and simply shove him down the cliff, so that his body would tumble and crash on the rocks below. He certainly had given him more than enough reason to, hadn't he? And, judging by the look in the man's eye when he realized Anders had healed him, earlier, the idea had more than just crossed his mind...

But he hadn't pushed him. Instead, King Alistair had followed him, and now there he was, looking very much contrite, still, but not entirely murderous, anymore. When he had stared down on him, just a few moments earlier, jaw set in boiling, repressed rage, there had been such hatred, seeping out of his dark eyes... It had been a while since Anders had seen some so intense.

 

_Blue eyes, the colour of sun through ice._

_“You murderer!”_

__

 

“It doesn't make any sense,” King Alistair muttered, as if talking to the sea, and Anders let out a deep sigh.

“Why would I make this up?” he asked, because really, with just the two of them out there, why would he lie? What would he have to gain, from summoning such an unbelievable tale?

The King turned to him, then, and there they were again, those hard eyes. A deep shade of brown, they were, a rich hazelnut tone, with a fleck of autumn red, and an even bigger note of distrust. 

Anders could see both of them, now, with the King's face being fully healed - albeit for a light scab, still visible on the highest point of his cheekbone. Not his best work, really, but in his defence, that had been an ugly wound, to begin with, and also, to be honest, Anders had lacked the necessary patience, earlier, to do as painless and seamless a job as he was capable of. 

“Don't try that,” the King said, voice ringing heavy with that same contempt that filled his voice whenever he addressed him, “I don't pretend to know how a mind like yours might work.” 

Anders held that gaze, like he had done earlier, when the King had stood over him, squinting those dark eyes down. From below, he had seemed even taller than he already was, which was no small feat, because the man was a tower. It wasn't even that he had much height on Anders -he hadn't- but his built was massive. Thick arms, a wide chest, even wider shoulders: perhaps the ragged clothes had something to do with that, but to be frank, the man looked like he rather belonged to the front-lines of an army, than to a gilded throne-room.

 _“Theirin blood, no doubt,”_ Anders had thought, _“The blood of the Silver Knight, and of King Belric the Tall.”_

A bitter taste filled his mouth, and Anders finally looked down, away from that accusing stare. How his mind worked, huh? 

His Grace's guess was as good as his.

“Well, believe what you wish,” Anders said, somewhat drily, and with a powerless shrug, “But the facts still stand: if Corypheus is really behind all this, then the people who captured us must be followers of his. Them being Tevinter is only corroborates what I've just told you.”

As the words left his mouth, Anders couldn't help but shiver: in his mind, the Calling buzzed louder, as if answering to the mention of its master. 

_“Whoever you be,”_ the monster had growled, deep in the bowels of the Vinmark, _“you owe fealty to any Magister of Tevinter. On your knees!”_

 _“Venatori,”_ the King murmured, all of the sudden, and when Anders raised a confused gaze on him, he repeated, “The Venatori. That's who it must be.”

Brows still furrowed, the King wiped a hand over his mouth, visibly thinking.

“Maker, it makes sense, now,” he whispered, more to himself, really, than to Anders, “That's why the Inquisition is after them, and it was them in Redcliffe, as well... They are Corypheus' men, of course, how could I be so Maker-damned blind?”

He must have seen it in his gaze that Anders wasn't exactly following, anymore, and so the King cleared his throat a little, as if trying to catch a more coherent train of thought.

“Ever since the Breach, there's been sightings of armed Tevinter cells all throughout the Kingdom,” he started to explain, talking slower, this time “ _“Venatori”_ is how they call themselves. We believed them to be the vanguard of an invasion, but the Inquisition has made it clear that the threat was theirs to take care of... Because they are one and the same with the Elder One, and that's who Lavellan is after!”

Closing his eyes, King Alistair pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a sharp sigh.

“It's so clear, now,” he said, “I can't believe I let it fly past me.”

Anders nodded, resting his arm on his knee, passing the clam from one hand to the other, taking the information in. 

It did make sense. He may even had heard some rumour relating to the matter, while on the road: armed 'Vints driving people away from their homes, the Inquisition pushing them back. Still... 

Under one name or another, how could anyone choose to follow such a creature? Were those Venatori like the Wardens in the Vinmarks had been? Coerced by some magic? Or were the Tevinter really as devout to their dark past they considered _so glorious_ as Fenris used to claim? 

King Alistair had started walking again, tugging absent-mindedly at his bearded chin, left-hand fingers lightly tapping under his right elbow.

“If this madness about the Warden prison is true,” he mumbled, “Then Corypheus really _can_ be the one behind this Calling. Still...”

Anders watched him roam, big steps of his tall legs carrying him quickly back and forth along the crash-line of the not-so-small green waves rising and falling from the Waking. Maker, but did that man ever settle down?

“A secret Warden prison in the Vinmarks,” the King murmured, “A Warden-Commander blackmailing a man into using blood magic...”

He scoffed, then, shaking his head a little. He seemed to have trouble swallowing that specific part down, which, to be honest, Anders found somewhat strange: sentient Darkspawn, he could manage, but the Grey Wardens keeping dirty secrets, _that_ was too much? 

Shouldn't he, of all people, know that was one of the Order's best specialities? 

The King made another loop, and honestly, he was starting to make Anders's head spin, with his incessant up-and-downs. The Mage was still turning the big clam between his fingers, and when the man once again passed by him, stepping in his own tracks like he intended on digging his way down to the Deep Roads themselves, he decided that that was it: he'd had enough.

“Your Majesty,” he called.

King Alistair stopped and briskly turned to him, throwing him a look that meant “well, what?” and with quite the impatient tone, at that, which finished convincing Anders that yes, it was time for him to calm down a little.

“Eat something,” he blankly instructed.

And with no further warning, he threw the clam he was holding right at the King.

Only the man's warrior reflexes allowed him to catch the shellfish in his hand before it flew right past his head. Once he had, the King threw Anders a look so utterly disbelieving it could have been comical, in other circumstances. But when he opened his mouth, it was clear as day that whatever he was about to say was in no way meant for laughter.

_“Here we go, again...”_

So tired. Anders was so tired, already... He wasn't sure he could deal with any more of the man's loathing, right then. His cold words from the day before still hung over him, leaving a bitter taste in Anders' mouth, rustling around thoughts at the back of his mind which he knew full well were better left untouched. Like the slimy bottom of a pond, suddenly upturned by a fisherman's oar, muddying up the clear water overhead until it was all murky and thick...

Then again, what else did he expect? Anders knew it: he clearly wasn't in any position to wish otherwise. Had those long months of travelling disconnected him for the reason why he was running, in the first place? Had living nameless, on the road, offering his healing to strangers in need in exchange for a little food or coin made him forget who he was, what he had done, and why the gratitude those people showed him was forever undeserved, misplaced?

A light, burning shiver ran over Anders, like a reminder, and when he blinked, for a second, he could see the bright blue power overflowing his veins, seeping out of him, tearing cracks in the too-fragile skin of his hands, like it had done no later than the day before. 

_“Good,”_ hissed a merciless voice in his head, and Anders heard it far too often, in there, to have trouble knowing who it belonged to, _“What else do you think you deserve?”_

 _“You know what I deserved, Garrett,”_ Anders tiredly answered, as if having this conversation in his head one more time was somehow going to change the outcome it, _“And yet, you couldn't bring yourself do it, could you?”_

Swallowing hard, the Apostate forced his shoulders to relax, more or less successfully. No, clearly, none of it hadn't been enough to make him forget. Anders knew very well who he was, and what he had done, and he certainly didn't need the King to remind him of it one more time.

The man was still looking at him, and his mouth was still open, ready to spit more venom, and Anders felt exhaustion roll over him in waves as tall as those which were crashing on the beach, right then. 

Fair or not, just a little respite, for a couple of hours... Was that really too much to ask? Probably. But even if it was, he had started, now, hadn't he? 

There wasn't much use going back.

“Please,” Anders gave in, cutting the King off before he could begin yelling again. 

He'd rather not think about what he was really asking for -he deserved nothing of it- so he quickly went on.

“You were all but passing out, earlier,” he explained, vaguely gesturing at the King's face, “You need to recover your strength, if we want to carry on.” 

It was true, but King Alistair didn't seem much ready to desist. As was expected, really. With a little, empty sigh, Anders tiredly added: 

“Unless it upsets your royal palate?” 

And, surprisingly, that seemed to work, albeit not exactly in the way Anders had anticipated. The King's eyes went a little wide, and he raised his eyebrows, with a mixture of disbelief and irritation, as if Anders had personally insulted him. Then, a little brusquely, he started prying the shell open with the point of his dagger, mouth tightening into a grim line.

“ _“Upsets my royal palate”_ ,” he mockingly repeated, voice low and sour.

His jaw set, then, and he made a face like he wanted to say something, but was holding it back. 

That didn't last long.

“You know I haven't always been King, right?” he grumbled, eyes focused on his task, “Have you perchance missed that little chapter of history called the Fifth Blight?”

Anders, he must admit, couldn't help being surprised by the bitterness of the man's reaction. It looked like he had seriously offended him, which was... unexpected, to say the least. It didn't seem to Anders like men in power men were often so prone to recuse their status like that...

Well, at least he wasn't yelling, anymore.

“That would have been hard,” Anders answered, frowning a little, “seeing as I was there.”

The clam cracked open, and the King raised his eyes at him, for just the shortest little glance, before focusing back on it.

“Yes, so I've heard,” he grumbled.

Unseating the clam from its shell, he stabbed it with the point of his knife, to bring it to his mouth. Although his hair was cut fairly short for a man of his stature, Anders couldn't help but notice that a few brown strands had still managed to fall in front of his eyes, when he lowered his head. 

“I actually read a report from Irving's hand, on the matter of your escape,” King Alistair said, once he'd finished chewing, “Said you missed that... _disaster_ with Uldred by a hair.”

With a small cock of his head, he discarded the shell, throwing it towards the sea. It bounced off the crest of a wave with a little white, foamy splash, before sinking.

“Lucky you,” he grimly added.

With another, long, sigh, Anders threw his head back against the reef he was leaning on. Lucky him, huh? 

“That's one way of looking at it,” he murmured.

Anders let his gaze wander on the pale sky above him, trying to follow the course of a small, round cloud flying lower than its sisters, dragging its slow way across the tall white vault. It had been hard to gather all the information about it, at the time, but little by little, account after account, he had managed to get a somewhat clear picture of the horrors that had gone down in Kinloch Hold, that famed day, and of the losses the Circle had suffered. He couldn't stop a spark of ancient hatred from flaring in his chest: of course Greagoir had claimed Annulment: he'd been waiting on the occasion for years, hadn't he? And Irving had been just as useless in placating him as he always had been, surely.

To think that already ten years had passed...

The King came closer, and Anders looked down again. The man hadn't been completely wrong: part of him had indeed forgotten King Alistair had been present at the Tower, that day. How could he have? There wasn't a soul in Thedas who didn't know the tales of the Hero and his companions, and of their travels across Blight-ridden Ferelden... 

Well, maybe Anders wasn't entirely to blame: seeing the King like this, ragged and with his hair all tangled, didn't exactly help one wrap their head around who exactly it was they had in front of themselves, right? It was hard enough already to reconcile that image with his own memory of the man – which, sure, was not exactly recent – so for the rest... 

Spotting another dome of wet sand next to his knee, Anders went searching there, and dug out another clam, entirely white, this time. He could feel the King's presence next to him, inspecting the slimy reef - finally deciding to get some sustenance in him, apparently – and the feeling weighted on him in all its absurd, improbable magnitude: Maker, but it really was him. That was really who he was stranded with: a Hero of the Fifth, and the King of Ferelden...

Honestly, he could have laughed, if he wasn't so incredibly tired by it all.

The closed shell he was holding in his hand weighted heavy in the crook of his palm. Anders went to search the rock he'd picked up before, to smash it open, but as he turned around, he found the King looking at him, once again. 

Maker, but was this journey going to be long...

Adamantly refusing to try and discern what exactly was going through the man's mind, this time, Anders tried not to meet his gaze. Instead, he gestured with his head to the dagger slid into the hem of the man's pants.

“May I..?” he asked, and King Alistair threw him a long, suspicious look.

It dragged on a while, but right when Anders was about to desist, the King finally reached for the blade. With an trained gesture, he flipped it in his hand, and presented it to him, hilt-first.

“Sure,” he gritted out, eyes still firmly pointed straight in Anders'. 

_“Come on, make a move,”_ they seemed to be saying, _“Give me a reason.”_

But Anders just took the blade from him with a slight nod - it was surprisingly light - and went at the delicate task of splitting the clam open. King Alistair's brown, judging eyes lingered on him for a second, but then he seemingly focused back on the reef, and silence settled between them for a few long moments, again, contested only by the rumble of the waves and the whistle of the wind over their white-crowned crests. The birds that had scattered to avoid them, earlier, had made their way back, and were foraging again, their initial shyness apparently overcome. 

“I've read more than one such report, you know?” King Alistair said, after a while.

The knife made a screeching sound as it raked between the two halves of the clam's shell. Anders felt that murky water ripple once again at the back of his mind, and his voice was very blank, when he answered:

“Is that so?” 

The King made a noise of assent, but waited until he'd finished his mouthful to go on.

“Learned the strangest of things,” he said, and his tone was very detached, all of the sudden, non-committal, as if they were having a simple, cordial conversation over some tea, “Honestly, I'm not quite sure what to believe. A lot of people were more than eager to share their tale of you, after Kirkwall,” - that name, how deep it cut into Anders' back - “but I've got to say, some of it was quite... perplexing.”

“I'm sure it was,” Anders murmured. 

The clam's seal gave up, and he delicately lifted the top shell open. The muscle inside was yellow and firm, but Anders found his appetite had quite left him, all of the sudden. Still, he forced himself to eat, because there was no way of knowing when their next meal would be, and because with his mouth full, he had an excuse not to answer, right?

“Well, you must understand,” King Alistair went on, unperturbed, too-calm voice sounding the exact opposite of casual, paradoxically, “It's not every day that one hears of Fade spirits possessing living hosts. Forgive us for being a little puzzled, would you?”

Anders stared at the gritty sand under his feet. The taste of shell-fish that filled his mouth reminded him of Léonie, again, but with her memory came so many others, each one more vivid than the next, and all tinted with the same, blood-curling mixture of both joy and dread that seeped through everything, when it came to _him..._

  


_“Apathy is a weakness.”_

_“You have an obligation.”_

_“All I have, all I am. This, I would give.”_

_“Do you have the courage to accept my aid?”_

_Burn of steel through his chest. Taste of blood in his mouth._

_Not his._

_“My name. What is my name?”_

_Warmth of fire, on his face, on his hands, all over him._

_“This never used to be so hard.”_

  


Anders closed his eyes to escape the sight of the cracks on his hands: even if he knew they were only in his mind, he still couldn't stand them. The breath he exhaled through his gritted teeth came out shaky, but he did his very best to make sure his voice, at least, would sound steady.

“You are forgiven,” he simply stated, and it was somewhat of a consolation to notice that he had sounded exactly as dead as he felt, right then.

“So it is true,” King Alistair grimly noted, as if he didn't already know that full well.

Anders breathed in deep, again, letting the memories flow back to where they belonged, trying to force the muddy water to settle down until it was somewhat clear again. A hopeless endeavour, he knew, but he had to do his best.

He couldn't afford to let all of this get in the way. He had to stay true to his words from the day before: there were more important matters at hand. Him and the King needed to work together, so no matter how cruel the bite of his words, he had to endure them, didn't he? He sure wished the man would reciprocate the effort, but well, he couldn't control that, so he could at least control himself. Or try to.

 _“Still quite small a price to pay, if you ask me,”_ Hawke's voice sneered in his head.

“It is,” Anders blankly answered, “True, I mean.”

Turning the dagger in his hand, he examined the hilt of it, wrapped tight in thin stripes of black leather.

“But rest assured,” he added, wishing he were as certain of it as he sounded, “He's proven quite the shy fellow, lately.”

“Oh, grand,” the King scoffed, sarcasm dripping heavy from his words, “Colour me entirely serene.”

Anders fought very hard against the urge to roll his eyes – collaboration, remember? - and instead went searching for another shell-fish to pry open. He wasn't hungry, anymore, but he really felt he needed to keep busy, right then.

How could he explain something that he himself still barely understood, even after all these years? How could he tell the King that no matter how “one” him and Justice sometimes felt, Anders really had never had a sure-fire way to entirely control the Spirit's power? That just like there was no way for him to summon it entirely at will, there was also nothing he could do, sometimes, to stop that burning energy from manifesting through him?

“Don't worry,” Anders started again, wishing he was in position to take his own advice, “If you had anything to fear from him, you'd already...”

But, suddenly, the King raised his hand, abruptly cutting him off.

“Shut up,” he snapped, and Anders' eyebrows flew up. 

Alright, collaboration was all well and grand, but enough was enough.

“Excuse me?” he said, voice raising, because really, there was only so much good will he could muster, “You're the one who wanted...”

“No,” King Alistair interrupted him again, low and tense, “I mean, listen.”

His hand was raised in mid-air, like he was signalling him to wait, and Anders sobered up all at once, because the man's voice had sounded like terrible news. And it did again, when he added:

“Do you hear that?

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My life is a mess and so is my schedule, but I'm not giving up! Thank you for bearing with me!


	9. Iron and Salt

 

 

 

Somewhere on the cliff-side to the right, a gull let out a shrill sound of alarm.

Anders quickly got up to his feet, while King Alistair kept focusing, brow furrowed and eyes low, to try and make out the origin of the sound he had heard. Yes, there was something, the Mage too could tell, but it was very distant. A rumble, maybe? With the roar of the waves crashing on the sand right next to them, it was hard to discern anything clearly... 

Lifting his gaze, Anders squinted against the cloudy sky's blinding white light, looking around and up at the ridge of the cliff, searching... and finding. A sharp pang of tension pierced his gut, and Anders cursed.

“There,” he said, patting the King's arm to attract his attention to where he was pointing, “See them?”

He did. The King too hissed a curse under his breath, and without needing to be prompted, Anders held the black dagger back to him. He took it without even moving his eyes from the edge of the cliff he was scanning, and from the two tall figures clearly standing out on top of it. 

Mounted on their slim Tevinter horses, the two soldiers were roaming along the cliff-edge, looking for a way down the steep and rocky descent to the sand below. Their pointed black helmets made stark, threatening silhouettes against the white sky.

“It seems our Venatori friends have made two plus two on our trajectory,” King Alistair grimly observed.

He stepped further from the shoreline, then, looking straight ahead, obviously measuring the distance that still separated them from the riders. The two had apparently found a viable route, and started making their quick way down the sharp slope. Round grey rocks, dislodged by the horses' hooves, preceded them to the beach, tumbling and rolling dangerously fast, making the birds grouped at the bottom of the descent flee and scatter in a wide, noisy circle. 

“Alright,” the King murmured, hard eyes locked onto their enemies, in the distance, “I've got a mage, on the lighter bay, do you see him?”

He undid his scarf, as he spoke, and quickly wrapped it around his hand, to get it out of the way, probably, but maybe also to offer his knuckles whatever meagre protection he could give them against the upcoming violence. Anders followed him closer, jaw stiff, looking for the clues the King was pointing him at. 

“Got him,” he nodded, catching sight of the long bladed staff that the man was aptly using to balance himself on the saddle as his horse made its hazardous way down, “But what about the second one?”

One after the other, the riders landed heavily on the sand. Anders felt tension prickle the skin all over his arms, more so than what any of the sharp Waking wind had been able to induce before. Whatever painful memory was still bubbling at the edge of his mind was swiftly shoved deep to the back of it, to make space for the low static of alarm. Calling forth his magic, Anders felt it rising in him in slow, tingling coils, and he swallowed hard: the riders were galloping at full speed towards them, now, the enemy Mage twirling his staff over his head in tight, fast circles. The sea-birds scurried out of their way, taking frantic flight to avoid the thundering trajectory of the horse's hooves. Anders could hear the roar of them approaching, raising above that of the wind and waves, growing stronger at a fast pace, like an avalanche: it wouldn't take much for the Venatori to reach them.

He narrowed his eyes more, nervously biting his lower lip: he still had trouble making out what sort of weapon the second man was carrying. He was clearly holding something, but maybe because of the distance, it didn't look much like a weapon. Actually, it looked more like a...

“Book,” Anders murmured, before adding, louder, so that the King could hear, “It's a spellbinder. Be very careful!”

King Alistair let out a scoff that sounded more like a low growl, as he rolled his shoulder to warm up his surely-stiff muscles. He was pacing, Anders realized. Like a big battle-hound, waiting for the gate of his cage to be raised, the King was walking up and down in the sand along a short invisible line, face closed and eyes firmly pointed straight ahead, fingers carefully adjusting themselves around the hilt of his dagger.

“It really is that kind of day, isn't it?” he sourly joked, and Anders couldn't help but let out a terse, sarcastic scoff, in response: his Majesty could say _that_ again. 

“How's your magic?” the King asked again, and Anders made a not entirely optimistic sound, opening and closing his right fist, feeling the energy crackle in the space between his bones. 

The currents of his power, the wide inner rivers that flowed right along with those of his blood, were throbbing with low, distant heat. It was an unpleasant sensation, not unlike that of joint pain, but also the stinging tingle of blood flowing back to a numbed limb: he had forced himself twice-over, the day before, and the lack of rest since had done nothing to help him recover. 

“That bad, huh?” King Alistair grimly jested, not needing to wait for his answer. 

Anders' mouth tightened. Now was not the time to think about how exhausted they both were, was it? Tired or not, him and the King would have to make do with what they had, and very soon...

The riders were close. Sand shot in tall sprays from the horses' hooves. Anders could feel violence plummeting towards him, thrown his way at full gallop on the back of those fast animals. The sound rolled and bounced on the cliff, with an echo eerily close to the rumble of thunder. They'd be on them in seconds, and Ander's throat was knotted, he realized. 

Was there really no other way but this? Ruthless, wordless brutality, without any chance at a negotiation, or a compromise? The King set his shoulders, ready to pounce, and the horse-riding mage spurred his mount forward, all of the sudden, taking the lead of his party. The spell-binder fell right behind, and Anders could see his hand trace invisible runes in the air. Light shifted and distorted in a slim arch around the staffed man, and Anders felt his own power rise in alert.

He had his answer.

“Watch for the barrier!” he shouted, and the King got his meaning, because he instantly jumped to the side, managing to just barely avoid getting hit by the invisible energy wall as it plummeted towards him.

His guard barely faltered, but the mounted mage, enabled by his ally's protection, was ready to seize even the smallest opportunity: with a sharp twist of his black staff, the Venatori summoned a spray of fire, meaning to catch the King in it as he rode by him without so much as slowing down. 

Lucky for him, though, King Alistair had good reflexes, and some anti-magic left: his raised hand managed to dispel the flames before they engulfed him, and then Anders lost sight of him, because the horse plummeted between them, driving them apart. The spell-binder right behind had Anders in his sight, now: the skin of his neck prickled, and it was all the Apostate could do to hastily deflect the lightning bolt aimed straight at his face before it hit him square on. The spell's power surprised him, and he had to strain to channel it aside, baring his teeth and feeling the electricity sizzle through his arms as he crudely diverted it into the sand on his left. The bolt hit the beach with a short blinding flash and a sound like the crack of a whip, and when the horse barrelled by him, Anders was almost thrown off-balance, having to struggle to keep his footing as he hastily turned around. King Alistair was by him again, and they both watched as the two Venatori rode past them, and then in a tight curve, barely loosing speed as they repositioned to once again come at them.

“Can you split the shield?” King Alistair shouted at him, voice ringing tight with urgency, and Anders raised his hands again, eyes focused on the first rider, trying to spot the shimmering edge of the invisible barrier surrounding him.

“Can't you?” he shouted back, but the King had no time to answer, because this time, the spell that emerged from the black Tevene staff was a wide blade of flames, slashing at them both horizontally, forcing them to jump out of its lethal way.

Of course, there was no defending oneself, when one was rolling in the sand, fighting to keep it out of one's eyes. This time, the spell-binder's lightning bolt hit Anders right in the shoulder, making him hiss in pain, fingers clawing hard at the ground as his healing flared in him, countering the damage searing in his flesh.

“Don't you think I would have done it already, if I could?” Anders heard the King snarl, while he struggled to get up, “Or do you believe I enjoy sitting here on the open like a still target?”

Managing up, Anders threw the King a furious glare, still shaking off the pain from his right arm.

“Oh, my bad, Your Majesty,” he snapped, flicking sandy hair from his face,“I seem to have over-estimated you twice, already, haven't I? Has it occurred to you that if you hadn't wasted all of your anti-magic on your little outburst, yesterday, you'd still have some left to use now?”

“Funny,” King Alistair hissed, guard lifting back up, as the Venatori once again circled around to ride them down, “No, really, let's hear some more of your mocking! This is the perfect time, after all, isn't it?”

Anders felt the air crunch around him, and when, with the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a flying spark, coming right at them, his blood chilled.

“Get down!” he yelled, and this time, he had no other choice but to jump right at the King, deploying his barrier over them both as he pushed him down in the sand.

The fireball exploded right behind them, and Anders had to use all of his focus not to let go of his shield as it shook and faltered under the power of the spell, and then of another, as the spell-binder once again doubled down on the damage dealt by his ally with a powerful cone of flames that roared loud and scorching, engulfing them entirely. Ander's magic boiled and reeled in him, sending harsh spikes of pain across his arms and hands, and holding the dome up got harder and harder, tearing a long, strained groan out of him, making his entire back ache and his arms shake uncontrollably. When finally the fire stopped, the release was so violent that Anders found himself unable to hold himself up. He lost balance to the front, feeling his barrier collapse around him, and it was all if he didn't fall right on top of King Alistair, who was still laying under him.

“Blighted Void,” the King rumbled, pushing him aside, not very delicately, to be able to get up.

He held his hand out to him, though, and Anders didn't hesitate to take it: he wasn't going to shun away any help to haul himself up. Maker knew he needed it, right then... His legs were wobbly, but he still managed to get himself upright. Letting go of the King's arm, Anders summoned his magic again, hearing more than he saw the horses getting close, and let out a tight hiss. Oh, _that_ had hurt.

“This is bad,” King Alistair simply stated, like he was reading his mind.

The first Venatori switched his staff from one arm to the other, holding it low as he spurred his horse forward. Behind him, the spell-binder was still enchanting, hands hovering over the pages of his big grimoire.

“That shield needs to go down,” the King said again, and Anders nodded.

“We have to dismount the spell-binder,” he said, “If we break his focus, the barrier will fall.”

“And how do you plan on doing tha... Shit. Hold on!”

This time, it was the King who all but pulled Anders out of the charging horses' way. He was much stronger than the Mage, managing to fling them both far enough to the side that the cone of flames that would have swallowed them whole roared instead behind them, avoided. They both rolled most unceremoniously in the sand, first dry, then wet, as they reached the cold swash-line. When they finally stopped, Anders let out a pained groan, in feeling the King's weigh bear down on him.

“Maker, but you are heavy,” he croaked out, and King Alistair raised an eyebrow at him, disbelieving.

“Am I really?” he hissed, wincing the hair out of his eyes, getting sand all over Anders' face, “Why, I beg your pardon, then!”

He jumped to his feet, readjusting the dagger in his hand, and this time Anders got up without his help. The Venatori were coming back again, keeping up with their dangerous formation. Maker, this didn't bode well... If their plan was to ride them down over and over again until they were exhausted, and entirely vulnerable to their attacks, then by all means, it was working.

“I can go around the barrier and get him from the side,” the King said, “But you need to clear the first rider's spells from me. Can you do that?”

He was starting to get out of breath too, Anders could see. With his arm, the King tried to wipe more sand from his eyes, but that seemed only to worsen his case, because he grimaced, blinking repeatedly as he waited on his answer.

“I can,” Anders said, pushing his own hair out of his face, “I still have enough for a barrier, maybe more. If we wait long enough...”

“I don't think we have a choice, really,” King Alistair said.

He was right: the Venatori were practically on them, again. Anders could even hear the low muttering of the book-wielder's enchantment, and feel the gathering of heat at the end of the other mage's staff. Another charge like that, maybe two, and there would be nothing left in them to fight on, Anders knew. It was now or never. 

Raising his hands, Anders breathed in deep, while the King planted his feet solidly in the sand, dagger still up. He was standing right in front of him, and Anders could see only his massive silhouette, rooted to the ground like a tall oak tree, unwavering, against the scary background of the two Tevinter galloping their way. 

It had been long since he'd stood behind someone, like this, in the middle of a battlefield, Anders thought, in a strange moment of calm like the risk of imminent death sometimes brought on. As the King set his shoulders, ready to attack, Anders found himself thinking of another wide back, in front of him, of the familiar, hot power that would vibrate out it, and of the laughter would make those beloved shoulders shake...

“Now!” King Alistair shouted, dashing forward, and Anders felt his whole body react instantly, as if the instinct of battle had never once left him, even after all these years.

The first rider raised his staff, but his cone of flames split uselessly around the barrier Anders had summoned. The horse bounced sideways, leaping to avoid the obstacle, and both energy fields met against one-another with a high-pitched, hissing sizzle, like water caught between two white-hot sheets of steel. The taste of copper flooded Anders' mouth, and his arms protested painfully, but he bared his teeth and held on as the walls skidded and sputtered, spitting like angry cats while big sparks of pure magic sprayed from in-between them, until finally they glided off each other, and the Venatori passed behind King Alistair. 

The King followed through with his plan, and didn't wait for the occasion to go by him: as the Tevinter mage angrily pulled on his reins, forcing his mount to make a harsh turn-around, he intercepted the second rider, stepping right on his trajectory. The spell-binder was following his ally far too close, and far too fast, to be able to circle the obstacle, and so when the King armed his dagger, and slashed it forward with force, there was nothing the Venatori could do to avoid him.

Anders didn't see the hit land, but he heard the loud, pained neigh the horse let out when the blade split its flesh. The animal violently reared, and when it did the whole saddle slid off his back, cinch severed by the King's blade. The rider was thrown right off and he crashed down, clutching his book to his chest as if to protect it from the fall. 

While the horse, kicking in panic, darted off towards the cliff, the King made to immediately sweep down on the fallen man, but the other mage had managed to reposition, and clearly thought otherwise. With a murderous roar, the Venatori slashed his staff at the King again, fire erupting from the bladed end with furious power. Anders winced, barrier faltering hard under the burn of it. He knew instantly he couldn't hold on much longer, so when he knew he was going to give in, Anders channelled all that was left of his strength to disperse the barrier outwards, in an arcane blast, hoping to at least push the rider off the King enough for him to be able to re-position. It worked, but the Venatori didn't give much distance in: holding his reins tight, he forced his foaming horse to remain in place, and immediately swung the weapon down again.

This time, though, the King was ready. Instead of stepping back, he stood his ground. His dagger stopped the staff in its tracks with a loud, metallic clank, and his other hand rushed to grab the shaft, higher, and pull on it hard. That must have taken the rider by surprise, because he was too slow to let his weapon go: dragged along by his staff, the Mage tumbled forward, unseated. The King didn't wait for him to even crash in the sand: with a fluid gesture, he twirled the staff around, and slashed at the fallen Venatori with the bladed end of his own weapon.

Somehow, the lack of a scream was even more chilling than the sound of it, to Anders. But he didn't have time to reflect on it, because while King Alistair was finishing off the first assailant, the spell-binder had managed to get up behind him. He had discarded his book and ripped the helmet off his head -his hair was blonde and curly- and in a scary flash, Anders caught sight of the man's magic-lit eyes, just a fraction of an instant, before he fade-stepped away. 

For a second, Anders had no idea where the mage had gone, and neither did the King, because he spun around, on the look-out for movement, with the staff still in one hand, and the bloody dagger in the other. When they both realized to where the mage had moved, though, it was too late to stop him.

Anders raised his hand, but he was just a second too slow. The spell-binder's blast hit him hard enough to lift him off the ground and send him flying to the side, but right when he braced himself to hit the sand, Anders felt himself crash violently into water, instead. 

The cold choked the air right out of his lungs, and all at once he was submerged, all sounds of battle drowned out in one go by the thick, heavy liquid wall above him. He couldn't see anything: the water was full of sand, and the hit had stunned him hard, enough so that he couldn't figure out which way was up, anymore. Right as he was starting to panic, lack of air already tightening his chest, Anders' hand found the bottom, and he pushed himself off of it with all the strength he could muster. His head pierced the surface, and he gasped a big breath of air in eagerly, realizing he could actually easily touch the bottom, having landed not so far from the shore line. His braid had come undone, and hair was sticking all over his face, so he hurriedly tried to wipe it off his eyes, looking for his opponent, recovering his breath...

Before he had any time to see him coming, the man was on him again. He flung himself full-bodily at Anders, with all the momentum of his speed spell, and his weight was enough to make the apostate loose his balance, and go under again. Right as he sunk, a searing pain shot through his upper arm, and Anders screamed, water filling his mouth instantly as a cloud of red passed in front of his eyes. He tried to grab the man's armed hand, but he couldn't see anything, and the water made his movements sloppy and imprecise, and he could already feel his lungs burning, the man's pressure on his body keeping him down as he struggled uselessly, and his head was spinning and...

All of the sudden the downward force on his chest released in a big blurry of foam and bubbles, and Anders managed to push up, surfacing again with a big, strained gasp, immediately followed by a moan of pain as he felt the cut on his arm burn horridly with salt-water. But he took no time to look at it, trying instead to adjust his vision, to blink all that salt from his eyes and all the hair from his face, quick, before he got attacked again... 

When he could see, the first thing Anders noticed was that the water around him was red, so much so that the blood running down his arm barely seemed to be adding any more colour to it. His mouth was full with the taste, he realized. He could feel the sting of it on his tongue: iron and salt. Then, all he saw in front of him, for a few chilling instants, was King Alistair, standing with crimson water up to his thighs, and face hard with effort. 

The King had caught the Venatori by the hair, and was struggling to keep his head underwater. The man's powerless hands were splashing around uselessly, desperate to grasp at the King's arm, sparks of raw magic blinking chaotically from in-between his fingers. Before Anders could even think of moving, something flashed through King Alistair's eyes, just a blink of something Anders' couldn't name, but which he thought looked a whole lot like pain, for a second. With his jaw set and his brows furrowed, the King dipped his armed hand under water, and without hesitation, swiftly cut the man's throat.

Blood oozed from under the surface, turning the water even darker, and the Venatori's hands fell down limply, with a weak, final splash. As Anders gazed on, King Alistair straightened up, slightly wild-eyed, chest heaving hard as he stared at the red waves licking his legs. Still fighting to recover his breath, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, managing only to smear blood all over his chin. 

_“He didn't want him to drown,”_ Anders realized, in another of those eerie flashes of lucidity.

The King's hand was still holding the dagger, and in front of him, in the red waves, the dark mass of the dead Tevinter floated grimly in the shallow water.

“You're bleeding,” was all Anders could find in him to say, after a few seconds of a silence that stretched on like forever.

There was a shallow cut, indeed, oozing slowly on the King's forearm. Blood diluted in the water covering his skin, and Anders watched it spread out over it in hypnotizing, convoluted curls. 

“Yeah,” King Alistair murmured, eyes still a little vacant, before looking up at him, and suddenly taking on a much more worried expression, “Wait, you too. A lot, actually.”

Anders followed his gaze, and oh, yeah. That _was_ quite a lot of blood running down his shoulder.

“Can you walk?” King Alistair asked, putting the dagger away.

Anders nodded, but the action was immediately followed by a slight vertigo, and then, as if the rest of his body had suddenly decided to remind itself to him all at once, by a long, harsh shiver. Maker, but was that water cold. Gelid, actually, and the wind, still hissing against the clothes now drenched and glued to his skin, was only making it worse.

The King looked him on dubiously, but Anders, conscious that the more he stayed in there, the more faint he would feel, managed to set himself forward, and make his way up to him. Moving wasn't exactly pleasant, but it had the benefit of keeping him warm. Well, warmer. The pain in his arm was making him clench his teeth, but it wasn't _entirely_ unbearable: he could feel sparks of healing magic already snaking their way along the edges of the wound, which wasn't really even all that deep. Probably all that salt simply made it feel much worse than it really was.

Anders tried not to let his look linger on the dead Venatori's body, as he passed by it. It bobbed up and down with the raise and fall of the waves, not really floating, but unable to sink either, in the too-shallow water. King Alistair seemed to hesitate, for a moment, but then he seized the dead man by the collar of his jacket, dragging him along as him and Anders both walked to shore. 

He let go of it when they were finally both on solid ground again, and then, with a pained groan, he straightened his back.

“Maker's bloody damnation,” the King winced, “It's so blighted cold.”

As if to punctuate his sentence, he repressed a shiver, and Anders nodded, tiredly flipping his wet hair over his shoulder. His limbs felt heavy, and the wind was biting so mercilessly at his skin, he already had trouble feeling the tips of his fingers. Only the blood running down his left arm brought him a semblance of warmth, but it really wasn't much. 

“We can't go on without at least drying off,” Anders said, breath still hissing, and bottom lip worrisomely starting to shake, “We'll freeze to death.”

“Agreed,” the King reluctantly admitted, “Let's get a fire going.”

It was easier than Anders had feared to find dry fuel for the fire. The cliff-side was full of little nooks and crevasses, not really caves, per say, but indents of various sizes, some large enough to shelter them both away from the worst of the wind. The float-wood and sea-weeds tucked there by the breeze and the waves hadn't suffered the rain from the days before. The King gathered a healthy pile of it, while Anders sat in the sand, inspecting the wound on his upper arm with the tips of his fingers. It really wasn't all that much: the spell-binder's small dagger had stabbed him deep enough, but neat, and away from the major arm-veins. He was almost tempted to let it be for the moment, but since he had nothing proper to clean and dress the cut with, he had to resort to magic, which right then, wasn't exactly the easiest thing for him to do.

Forcing magic out when one was drained of it was like pushing on climbing with a sprained ankle: painful, frustrating, and often-times useless. Mouth tightened, Anders did the best he could, but with the burn of his over-worked power channels, and his fingers shaking from the cold, the cut came out a wiggly little ugly scab, albeit safe and painless. Well, what was one more scar? With a sigh, Anders straightened up, pulling his wet sleeve over the sealed wound. 

“Can you spark the tinder?” the King asked, carefully placing a bigger, wetter log near his pile, to shelter the kindling, and, hopefully, so it could dry as well later, once the fire got going, “I can go see if one of our friends had a flint, otherwise.”

Anders shook his head, leaning forward.

“No need,” he said, holding out his hand to softly brush the dry sea-weed the King had stacked under some smaller twigs, “A spark is something I can always make.”

He did a little more than that: a small flame, just at the tip of his middle finger, held on long enough to set the tinder fully ablaze. He was anxious to get the fire going, and just one more throb of pain in his arms wasn't much, at this point. Pulling his hand back, Anders watched the fire take easily, steadily climbing up the well-built wood-stack the King had managed to lay down. A pretty thing, really: condensed and smoke-less, something only someone used to travelling and the outdoors could be so quick to build. What had the man said to him, earlier? 

_“You know I haven't always been King, right?”_

“I'm hoping the wind and cliff will keep this hidden,” King Alistair said, worriedly looking up to the white sky, “If not, we might as well have lit our own pyre.”

Anders shrugged, scooting closer. Maker, how pleasant it was to feel that heat, finally, and smell that hearty, familiar scent of campfire...

“It's not as if we had any choice,” Anders murmured, and the King made a small cock of his head that seemed to mean: _“fair point,”_ before sitting down as well, pulling up a little with his nose.

Anders felt his lids grow heavier, all at once. Weariness was starting to weigh his whole body down. It was often the case, wasn't it, after a big fright: the moment the storm settled was when the damage made itself really known. The Calling buzzed softly by his ear, as if reminding him that yes, he might have forgotten about it, while he was fighting, but it was still very much there. Like always.

Blinking, Anders inched even closer to the flames, feeling them finally warm up his wet hair and clothes. He should remove those, he knew, if he wanted them to dry faster, but right then, moving was the last thing he wanted to do, much less to undress, so he granted himself some time to wring his hair out, instead.

He wasn't used to this, anymore, was he? Even if his healing was as sharp as ever, his other... talents, on the other hand, were all feeling more than rusty. Time had passed since the days when he'd be caught in a melee in the slums of Kirkwall on a practically daily basis. Not that he missed it, but nowadays, it was already an event if he cast more than one spell over the course of a week. So of course, he didn't display the same sort of stamina he had back then... 

Not to mention how much harder everything was, without a staff: the runed shards along the shaft attuned his magic and channelled it where he pointed, whereas with just his hands, he had to direct it himself, taking care not to let the power dispel uselessly in the ambient air... It was exhausting. Hopefully, the Tevinter rod, which Anders could still see sticking from the sand where the King had apparently planted it before going into the water after him and the spell-binder, would solve at least that part of the problem. He'd get up and leave the fire-side to retrieve it, soon. Another shiver took him, and Anders brought his legs up to his chest.

Maybe just not right then, yet.

“How is your shoulder?” 

Anders raised his head. The King wasn't looking at him, but rather at somewhere along the bottom of the cliff-side, to his left. Anders followed his gaze, and felt a point of sadness in finding the spell-binder's horse there, laying on its side, dead. It must have bled out while they were still fighting... The other one seemed to have run away.

 _“Good for you,”_ Anders thought, forcing his gaze to turn back to King Alistair, instead of letting it roam towards what he knew it was being unwillingly pulled to: the bodies of the two Venatori, laying motionless in the sand.

“Healed,” Anders answered, trying not to think too much on how many lives he'd taken to protect his own wretched self, in just a couple of days.

Of course, it wasn't just for him, but for Léonie, the Wardens, and more urgently, the King too, and he hadn't been left much of a choice, but still... Still, it felt wrong. It always did.

 _“Always?”_ Hawke sneered, sardonic.

Shifting slightly, Anders ignored him, and asked back: “Your arm?”

King Alistair looked tired too, albeit more alert. To answer, he shook his arm out, in a dismissive gesture.

“Nothing that needs care,” he said, “It's a scratch. Literally. ”

Anders felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold, as he understood what the King meant: the vertical graze, along with several, smaller others, had been left on his skin by the spell-binder's nails, as he drowned. The King pulled up with his nose again, and then wiped his hair back, ruffling his fingers through the spiky strands, to let them dry more easily. He'd taken the scarf off his arm, and laid it over the nearest large bit of float-wood to dry, but he didn't seem inclined to take his top off yet, either. His eyes were still somber, and pointed away. To the sea, Anders realized.

“I worry about fresh water,” the King said, after a long bout of silence.

With a little strain, Anders turned around, to expose more of his left side to the flames, but also to better face the other man. 

“We have this heavy humidity working for us,” the mage said, “And we might get lucky with some more rain, but you're right. It's a problem.”

Anders pinched his mouth, with a tired sigh: to think that they had thought their order of business was as simple as to rush back to Amaranthine as fast as possible... What a foolish miscalculation. Of course, it now turned out that actually, they had very practical, very urgent concerns to deal with, too. It was really much more about surviving each passing day, than it was sticking to any sort of a travelling schedule, wasn't it?

“We could use at least a flask,” Anders said, and as an answer, the King stood up.

The small groan he let out, as he did, betrayed far more about his own state of exhaustion than his expression ever had.

“I'm going to search them,” The King declared, once up, and there was no need to specify who he was talking about, was it? “Who knows: we might get lucky, just this once.”

He didn't seem very convinced. As he spoke, the King shrugged off the stolen doublet, and wrung it hard, before spreading it out to dry. He kept his pants and shoes on, though, for now, and rested a hand on his hip, as he straightened up. Gathering his courage to venture back out in the wind, Anders guessed.

His chest and back were full of scars.

“Alright,” King Alistair said, breathing in deep like a swimmer about to dive, before letting the air out in a sharp sigh, “Here I go.”

As he stepped away, Anders didn't stop his eyes from gliding over the man's large back, as it turned to him. Of all the scars he could see there, the one that had attracted his attention wasn't the biggest, nor even the worst-healed. No, it was three parallel cuts, not all that wide, running side-ways across the freckled skin of the King's left shoulder-blade, up the back of his neck, and disappearing far up into his hairline. 

Claw marks. From what sort of beast, Anders didn't even want to try and guess. 

He averted his stare, turning it back to the fire. The freezing touch of wet cloth on his own back reminded him that he should probably do something about his clothes as well, and so he got to it, doing his best to ignore the pain of his tired joints. With a few longer wood-sticks, it wasn't hard to build some sort of a drying rack. The leather of his walking boots wasn't going to appreciate the salt-water and heat treatment was going to be put through, but Anders was already lucky enough to have any shoes at all, really, given the situation, and their earlier imprisonment. Maybe the Venatori hadn't taken them to be sure their captives would later be able to walk... Well, they'd left them that, at least. 

Shivering as he finally removed his ragged doublet and shirt, Anders thought of his backpack, wherever it was. He'd left it harnessed to the saddle of horse he'd been lent, and by now, the Venatori had certainly emptied or destroyed it. There wasn't much he cared for, in there: his ingredients, maybe, but those could always be restocked... and, of course, his journal. That, he could never replace. Not that there was anything of great import, in there -it was entirely anonymous, for one, he'd made sure of it- but the small accounts he'd been filing, the scribbled notes and recipe ideas... Oh, well. 

It wasn't like he was going to live long enough to make use of those, was he?

Anders hung his clothes very close to the fire, not at burning distance either, but close enough that steam would start to coil up from them. He didn't much care about the distressed fabric's integrity: he was much rather interested in the clothes drying as fast as possible, so he could put them back on. The large blood-stain on the front of his Venatori doubled had turned a washed-out brown colour, and Anders sighed, again.

Some dark premonition told him he hadn't even seen the beginning of the violence this ordeal would bring on.

“There _was_ a flask.”

King Alistair's voice sounded both parts tired and annoyed, as he re-entered the alcove they'd chosen to build their campfire in.

“Unfortunately,” the King continued, bending down to lay some of his findings in the sand, “I managed to cut it open along with the leather straps of that saddle. So much for that luck...” 

Anders made a little shrug, feeding the healthy fire one more polished piece of wood.

“To be honest, I'd almost become suspicious, if we started getting lucky now,” he said, and the King made a somewhat jaded grimace, lips pinched to the side.

 _“Well,”_ he seemed to be saying, _“You're not wrong.”_

Kneeling down in front of the fire, King Alistair held his hands out to the heat, rubbing them together for a second, before turning back to pick a few objects from the pile.

“In any case, I found this,” he said, handing Anders a piece of brown fabric he recognized as the Venatori mage's short hooded cloak, “It's pretty dry, you might want to put it on. And this, of course.”

Anders didn't hesitate to slip the cloak on: there wasn't even that much blood on it, this time. And even with the fire so close, sitting there in his smalls wasn't that greatest of ideas, he knew it. The hood over his head, made him feel instantly better, and Anders received the magic staff the King was handing to him.

“Can you use it?” King Alistair asked, going back to ruffle around in his pile.

The staff was lighter than what Anders was used to, for a full-metal rod. He didn't recognize the alloy of it, but it felt strangely warm, to the touch.

“Yes, I think,” Anders answered, dragging his fingers along the shaft's length, “I'm going to have to try, to be sure, but it seems fine.”

There was an indent, near the blade, right where the King's dagger had blocked its swing, Anders supposed. Taking care not to cut himself on the sides of it, he tried to twist the blade on the end of the staff, to see if it would come off. It unscrewed pretty easily, and Anders set it aside, checking the balance of the shortened version.

“Don't you need that?” the King frowned, gesturing with his head at the discarded blade.

Anders was looking more closely at the inscription that ran along the side of the shaft, trying to make out if it was modern, or ancient Tevene - not that he could read either of those.

“I can't carry that thing around,” he answered, “It's not very inconspicuous, is it? Also, I'm no good at using one. I am a healer, your Majesty, not an arcane warrior. Do you want it?”

King Alistair picked up the blade, which was as long as his forearm, and squinted at it, carefully testing the sharpness of its edge with the pad of his thumb. 

“Don't think so,” the King said, looking more closely at the end of the weapon, dragging his finger in the inner screwing thread, “I happen to need a hilt between my hand and the blade. I could make one out of some scrap, maybe, but it won't wind up being much of a sword. It's a shame, but I guess it's useless.”

He put it back down, and went back to his pile.

“I left the helmets too,” he added, “I don't know for you, but honestly, it don't think they make much sense to carry around. Neither man had much else for armour. This leather chest-piece isn't bad... The other one is ruined, obviously...” 

One by one, the King laid his findings out in the sand, hanging those which needed to dry on Anders' make-shift rack. To its credit, the thing accepted the further charge without snapping, and the King made a face that could maybe have passed for appreciative, in other circumstances. 

The spell-binder's cloak was drenched, of course. Anders threw just a look back to the beach, but when he did, he was surprised to notice that the bodies had changed positions. The King had moved one next to the other, close to the shore-line, and they were aligned. Yes, Anders could see it, they were neatly laid out side by side, both on their back, and with their arms crossed over their chests. He turned his gaze back to the King, but the man was still rummaging through some pockets, and didn't notice his gaze.

“Knife, with sheath,” the man was listing, “These wrist-guards, flint and fire steel, a belt... There are a few vials, in this pouch. Do you know what they are?”

Anders took the pouch from him, while the King kept inspecting the belt's many compartments. He emptied it in the sand, careful for any breakage, but the small vials were intact. There were two, made out of baked clay, and the size of his finger. Anders opened the first, and just a breath was enough to tell him its contents. Maker knew he'd made enough such poultices to recognize one instantly.

“Elfroot,” he said, setting it aside, “With some deep mushroom too, in there, for potency. There isn't much, but it seems good. This one...”

He froze, once the cork had popped off the second bottle.

“This is lyrium,” Anders murmured.

“How concentrated?” King Alistair asked, raising his head from his current task to stare at the bottle with an expression of mild distrust.

“Not _“crossing to the Fade with a single sip”_ concentrated, don't worry,” Anders answered, feeling his mouth tighten with bitterness, memories of the Circle always ready to bubble up, even after all this time, “This is a tonic broth, for casting taxing spells.”

The song of it was so faint he could barely hear it. Putting the cork back on, he handed the vial to King Alistair.

“I don't know how much you usually take, but this isn't dangerous levels,” he said, “It should do you some good.”

The King made no move to take the vial.

“I don't take any,” he said, and as Anders frowned, confused, he added, “I never did. And trust me, I don't intend on starting now.”

Looking back down on the pocket he was still emptying, the King kept at his task.

“That stuff is poison,” he said, and Anders lifted his hand, as if to stop him in his tracks.

“Wait a minute,” he started, not really sure he understood, “I thought you were a...”

“Templar? Well, no. Not in the proper sense, at least. I've never gotten to the vigil. Not something the Chantry is so eager to shout from all rooftops, but I left right before. I try to keep up the little I've learned, but I really only ever dabbled.” 

Something in what the King said seemed to be funny, to him, because a small, ironic smile came up to his lips.

“Did you think I was a particularly weak Templar?” he asked, and Anders' frown deepened.

“Not really,” he answered, but yes, now that he thought about it, things actually made more sense, this way, “It's just that I don't know of many people who can do one without the other.”

The King's smile was already gone, of course, having lasted barely a flash, and he cocked his head to the side, moving on to open another pocket on the side of the belt.

“Well, Seekers aside,” he started, “There aren't a lot of people who can get privy to that sort of Chantry secret, and still be let go of its... “loving arms”, let's call them that. It's only because Warden-Commander Duncan conscripted me, that I...”

Pulling out a piece of paper from the pouch, the King stopped to examine it.

“Huh,” he said, unfolding the small square, “It's a message.”

Anders got closer, and the King handed the paper to him. 

“Can you read this?” he asked, and Anders shook his head, taking the message and bringing it closer to his eyes.

“Not much more than you can, I'm afraid,” he answered, still scrutinizing the few lines of black ink, in hopes of recognizing some word of harsh Tevene.

He found one. One that he didn't at all like.

“Look,” he grimly said, and the King leaned on, to read what he was pointing at.

At the bottom of the letter, a name. 

“Corypheus,” King Alistair murmured, voice dark, “I guess our suspicions were correct. And _Manaveris_ means "long live". That much I know. ”

“"Long live Corypheus, ” Anders repeated, baleful, “Charming.”

“That's not the signature, though,” the King said, leaning even closer, to point his finger at another word, at the bottom of the message, spaced out from the others, “This is, isn't it?”

“Vestis,” Anders read aloud.

That didn't tell them much, except that maybe this “Vestis” person was the note's author. But what were its contents? 

The King leaned back, and knelt closer to the fire, feeding it another log.

“Fehron really _was_ right,” he murmured, “I should have taken those stupid classes.”

The evocation of his guardsman sent a twitch along his jaw, though, and King Alistair looked up to the sky, while Anders folded back the note, and slipped it in one of the pouches of his own belt. Perhaps it could come of use later, he thought, while the King spoke up again.

“The sun is still high,” he said, “We should think about moving on, while we still have a good few hours of light.”

Anders agreed. Their clothes were dry – well, _dryer_ – and the road still long in front of them. His limbs were still very much painful, but the warmth of the fire had done him good. With a small groan of effort, Anders got up, and started recovering his clothes from the rack.

“Maybe _you_ should take the lyrium,” the King said, and Anders shook his head, starting to dress back up.

“I'd rather not,” he admitted, tying his pants around his waist, “I'll do if we meet some more danger, but this sort of potion would only replenish me temporarily. It would end up wearing off, and then I'd be left just as drained as I am now. Proper mana restoration can't be hurried, I'm afraid.”

The King nodded in a way that seemed to mean _“fair enough”_ , and got up as well. Quietly, he slipped his clothes back on, while Anders finished dressing up as well. King Alistair equipped the new belt, but handed him the knife. Anders accepted it with a slight nod, and tied it at his side.

“Do you want the bracers?” The King asked again.

“Keep all the armour,” Anders answered, tying up the straps of blood-stained doublet on his chest, “I'm faster without, and you need it more than I do.”

“Right,” King Alistair griped, holding the leather chest-plate up, “If only it fit me, I could get some real use out of it.”

The piece was indeed very much under-sized. Anders suspected the King had this problem with most armour, given his girth, but then again, being the King, he most certainly had all his custom-made. Inspecting the leather straps closer, King Alistair started untying them.

“I guess I can get a heart-plate out of this,” he said, “Which, on its own, is as good as holding up a sign that says “aim at my thigh-vein”, but hey. “Nothing's a scrap to a hungry Mab'” is it?”

Anders didn't pick up the very Fereldan saying, but he didn't think the King meant for him to do it. From the spell-binder's still-damp light shirt, the King tore a stripe of fabric, and started fashioning himself a new fastening, long enough to circle his large chest. While he worked, Anders finished equipping too, and once he'd secured the vial's small pouch on his belt, he re-tied his hair, even tighter than last time, hoping it would stay put. It and his clothes weren't entirely dry, but it was much, so much better than before, and the fresh autumn wind felt like it bit at his skin with much less spite than it had done earlier. Sitting by the heat had restored him in more ways than one: he was ready to depart, again.

“We can't keep going the way we were,” King Alistair said, slipping the dagger in his belt, surrounding it with a make-shift sheath of cloth, “If we just follow the shore, our trajectory is too obvious. We need to go further inland, or this...” 

He made a vague gesture around him, to the beach, but especially, Anders knew, to the bodies laying behind them.

“...will happen again.”

Anders nodded, bending down to extinguish the fire with some sand, fast, not to let it smoke too much as it died.

“You're right,” he said, before asking: “How far south is Havard's path? 

“Maybe a day,” the King answered, “Perhaps less. I'm not sure it's our best bet, though. This time of year, there isn't much traffic, around these parts. Most likely, the only ones travelling it are Constable Maeva and her... _exotic allies_ , looking for us.”

“Best keep off the roads, then,” Anders nodded.

None of this was very reassuring: they had no way of knowing how many enemies they had to fear, between there and Amaranthine. And even once there, who was to say the Wardens hadn't somewhat found a way to block entrance to the city, and its surroundings? Seeing how inclined the city guard had been to follow the Constables orders, two days before, there was some room for doubt: what if their loyalties didn't lean on the Crown's favour? If that was the case, him and the King might be walking back straight into another trap...

Well, such thoughts were no use, now. The fire was entirely spent, and Anders got up, leaning on his new staff. It was much shorter and lighter than his had been, really, but as he tested its reaction to his magic, it buzzed alive instantly. He didn't have energy to waste on casting a spell to really try it out, but Anders was confident it would more than make do.

“Who knows,” the mage said, walking out behind the King, who had already left the cliff-side alcove, “We might manage to go unnoticed, from now on. How many men can Maeva and the Venatori have?”

The King scoffed, but didn't turn around. 

He had stopped, and was staring at the sea again, like he had earlier. The green Waking of the raging storms, of the strong currents, and volatile temperament... It looked unchanged, all trace of the blood gone from its shores so swiftly, it was as if it had never been there. And yet, how clearly Anders could still feel the taste of it on his tongue... He stared at the waves for a while, but soon found he had to turn his gaze away: on the other side of that tumultuous expanse, there were the Free Marches. And Anders didn't quite like thinking about that either, did he?

Without dwelling any further, Anders set out in the direction they had come from, hoping to find a climbable path up the cliff. But the King wasn't following him, he realized. No, instead, King Alistair stood where he was, looking at the waves raise and crash in the sand, wind tugging at his miss-matched, distressed attire.

“Wait,” he said, and Anders stopped.

It was silence again, then, for a few long seconds, and right when Anders was about to ask what he was supposed to wait for, King Alistair spoke again. His voice carried over to him much louder than Anders thought it should, but the nature of his words had much more to do with it than the actual volume of his voice, he knew.

“Do you regret it?” the King had asked.

And, then, as if he really needed to, as if Anders' blood hadn't already chilled in his veins, his heart painfully skipped a beat, his tongue covered itself in a slick coat of a bitter spit that tasted far too much like ashes, he clarified: 

“What you did in Kirkwall.”

Anders felt his hands twitch, his fingers curl into fists. In his head, the muddy water swirled, stirred awake by the giant beast that lurked in there, turning his mind to slimy, murky mush.

“I fail to see how the matter would be relevant,” he heard himself answer, voice sounding strange and distant to his own ears, but ringing hard and cold as steel.

The King turned to him, and there they were once again, the hard, judging eyes. 

“Don't be stupid,” King Alistair said, “Of course it's relevant.”

His expression was stern. Anders had no trouble imagining this was how King Alistair looked like, when he stood overlooking the Landsmeet Hall, in Fort Drakon, addressing the noble men and women of his court. 

Or passing judgement on a criminal.

“It's like you said,” the King went on, “To make it back to Amaranthine alive, I need your magic. And you need my fighting skills. In order for this to work, there's a bare minimum I need to know. Like if I can turn my back on you without being blown up to the Maker's side, for instance. ” 

Anders could not lie to himself, and say he hadn't seen this coming: it had been building up for the last two days, hadn't it? The Venatori had interrupted him, earlier, but of course the King was not done. Of course he was going to confront him some more. What else did Anders expect? 

“Forgive a man for wanting to know what sort of murderer he's supposed to entrust his life to,” King Alistair said, and Anders jaw twitched.

His teeth were clasped together so tight they hurt. 

“So, which is it?” the King asked again, relentless, standing tall and with his dark eyes bolted in Anders', “The remorseful kind? Or the utter, unrepentant maniac?”

 

_“You killed them all!”_

 

“If you hate me _so_ much,” Anders hissed out, voice still ringing scarily dull, to his own ears, “then why did you take me with you?”

His thoughts were a painful jumble of fire, screams, and of course, blue eyes, and Anders kept on talking, wishing the words would manage to drown the images out.

“You could have arrested and hung me right outside the gates of Vigil's Keep,” he said like an accusation, he realized, “You could have left me to die, earlier, while you escaped. You had more than enough chances to get rid of me. Why didn't you?”

This time, it was the King's mouth which tightened, and the man breathed in deep. His eyes darted down for just a fraction of a second, but they were soon back, just as hard as before.

“Because it wouldn't have been fair,” King Alistair said, voice measured, “I'm not in the habit of letting people get slaughtered in place of a trial. And I'm not the authority you have to answer to for your crimes, Apostate.”

“Right,” Anders scoffed, bitter grimace of a smile twisting his lips, “And yet here you are, demanding of me that I answer your questions as if you were.”

He was angry, he realized. It burned hot and painful at the center of his chest, he could feel it: an anger so familiar, the feeling of it was enough to raise the hair on the nape of his neck. 

Were they really going to have to go over this? Even like this, even in the conditions they were in, the danger that surrounded them from all sides, even after Anders had time and time again proved to the King that he posed no threat to him? 

“I don't have to justify myself to you,” Anders blankly stated, but Maker take him, the King would not back down.

“I'm not asking you to justify yourself,” he said, “I'm asking you a very simple question: do you regret it?”

The question bounced inside Anders' head again, like a heavy glass marble, painfully wreaking havoc in the furthest, most scary regions of his mind. It made him physically flinch.

Did he _regret_ it? What sort of a foolish, childish question was that? How could the King really believe he was entitled to an answer to such a stupid, simplistic inquiry?

“I don't know, Your Majesty,” Anders bit back, feeling anger rush him, like it had the day before, on the outskirts of the bloody battlefield, when the King had lashed out at him as if he were going to kill him for real, spitting the Warden words at his face as if Anders didn't know them all full well, “Do you regret leaving the Kirkwall refugees to fend for themselves in the wake of the Fifth?”

It was the same thing, all over again, wasn't it? The King wanted to accuse? He _demanded_ an explanation? Fine! Then he'd have to give one back. One amongst many his people were owed, but one that was long, very long overdue, in Anders' eyes. 

The wind hissed, the waves crashed, and the birds were making their tentative return to the land that was theirs. King Alistair's stance shifted, and for the fist time, Anders saw a cloud pass over his fierce eyes, as he looked down.

“This again, huh?” the King said, voice ringing lower, “As if you were in any position to...”

He stopped, then, and Anders clearly saw him shift his jaw, as if keeping his words reined in. With a sharp sigh, King Alistair straightened his back, and faced him again. 

“You want me to start?” the man said, face hard, “Fine. I _wanted_ to help the Fereldans who had fled the Blight. When Viscount Dumar came to Denerim, in the wake of the Battle, I would have given him everything he asked, to help bring them back. But...”

He opened his arms, and an ugly parody of a chuckle twisted his mouth.

“But the thing is,” he said, “there was _nothing_ left to give.”

The cloud that passed in front of his eyes, this time, was much darker than the one that had come before. There was something almost vacant, in his stare, now, and Anders had no trouble recognizing the haze of painful memories, in his look. 

“You have no idea the state the Kingdom was in, at the time,” King Alistair went on, voice blank, “I don't think anyone does. To say that our coffers were empty is the most laughable of understatements. Cailan had spared no expense, in calling his banners at Ostagar, and later, Loghain squandered most of what was left greasing hands and raising armies for that stupid inner-war of his. And the rest, well...”

It was back, that twisted scoff, as if really, in some absurd, bitter way, this was funny, to him.

“You would be surprised by how much went missing in the hands of those who had access to it, and thought to themselves, given the state of affairs, that nobody would notice. “It's just a small Blight, isn't it? We'll see about it once it's done!” Well, I hope that gold gave them comfort, when the Spawn brought down their doors.”

King Alistair wiped a hand over his mouth, in a nervous gesture, and Anders was stuck staring at him, he realized. He hadn't expected for the King to answer, or at least, not like this: there was no mistaking the honesty of his words. That rancor was much to real to be pretence.

“When the dust settled, there was so much to rebuild,” the King went on, “And so little to do it with. Eamon...”

He stopped, sighed irately, and corrected himself.

“ _Then-Councilor Guerrin_ made me understand how much wiser it was to focus our resources on the people still here, and let Viscount Dumar take care of the... “deserters””, King Alistair went on, eyes low, and voice even lower, “How much more... _pragmatic_.”

This time, there had been something different, in his tone. Towards the end, it had rung almost like... resentment.

But Anders was in no state to focus on that. His head was filled with thoughts of Hawke, in Kirkwall, right after his meeting with this same King. Of the melancholy in his eyes. The grief. Even six years later, how that past had still stung him.

“So you _really_ made a choice to leave them,” Anders stated, unable to refrain the accusation in his tone.

King Alistair flinched.

“They-”, he started, and strangely, his words jumbled, in a way Anders had never seen happen, in him, “ _I_ did, yes. We did. It's... not the same Court now as it was, back then.”

The King's eyes lost themselves again, and Anders barely heard his voice, it was so low a whisper, when he added:

“And he isn't Councilor anymore, is he?” 

King Alistair cleared his throat, then, frowning, as if he was cross at himself, all of the sudden, for letting something like that slip.

“Anyway,” he said, louder, “There's that.” 

Straightening his back to face Anders, again, the King asked:

“Does that answer your question?”

Anders stared back at him.

“Not really,” he said, coolly, “I asked if you regretted it, and you haven't really answered.”

The King's eyes flared at him, but right when Anders thought he was going to snap back, the man's hand closed into a fist, and he didn't. Instead, King Alistair lowered his eyes again, and when he raised them, they were calm. Well, not calm, really, more like... tired. 

Sad.

“Of course I do,” he said, and if that was a lie, then he was the first one to believe it, because Anders couldn't find a single shred of dishonesty, in him, as he spoke, “If I could go back and find another way...”

He blinked down again, and sighed.

“But I can't,” he said, more firmly, “I can only deal with the consequences of that, too, I suppose.”

He paused, and then, somewhat angrily, The King waved his hand to the side, and started forward.

“You know what? Forget it,” he said, “I don't care about your answer. It changes nothing to the situation we're in, does it?”

Anders still hadn't said a word, taken aback, and when the King passed by him, he barely even moved.

“Let's just go,” King Alistair sighed, “You were right: it bears no relevance. We're going to need to work together, anyway. Too much is on the line.”

Still caught in a somewhat stunned silence, Anders watched the King go, making his quick way to the cliff-side they'd climbed down, earlier. The three claw-marks peeked just little from under the man's collar, standing out lighter against his copper skin, before loosing themselves into the line of his brown hair.

Anders knew he could have been reassured, glad, even, that the matter had been so suddenly dropped. But part of him wasn't, of course, because even if it hadn't, the question of what he would have answered was still on him. The truth?

Turning around, Anders threw one last look at the beach, the reefs, the cliff, and at the small silhouette of the bodies laying there on the swash-line. Soon the birds would get to them, wouldn't they? The idea made Anders nauseous.

As he stepped forward, following in the King's footsteps, Anders raised his gaze at the tall frame of that strange man.

The truth, huh?

As if Anders knew it.

 

 

 


	10. Thorns and Weeds

 

 

 

_Alistair felt cold._

_He was standing in water, a wide and shallow expanse of it, and it was gelid. It crept up his legs in small waves, and their touch on him felt like so many lifeless mouths, hungrily licking the skin of his thighs with icy tongues, grazing at his flesh with steel-like teeth._

_His hands too were cold, and when he looked down at them, Alistair saw that his fingers were tightly gripped around a handful of hair. The man under him was struggling hard, and Alistair realized he had to set his shoulders and really put his back into it, teeth clamped shut and arms burning with effort, to be able to keep that dark head below the water surface. Blunt nails clawed at his forearms, leaving long, bleeding scratches across his skin. The cuts stung sharply with the salt of the waves, but Alistair's hold never faltered._

_Who was he drowning, he suddenly wondered?_

_His hands were empty and the water was gone, but the cold lingered. There was nothing around him but a burnt-out, desert field: crackled dirt, as far as the eye could see, without even the stark silhouette of a charred tree to break the monotony of the horizon's flat line. But Alistair wasn't alone._

_In front of him, a man, dressed in northern finery of blue and green, was sitting on a black granite throne. His head was bowed but Alistair still recognized him instantly, and felt his heart fill with dread, his tongue turn to cotton inside his mouth._

_He was wearing a crown of fresh kelp-weeds - like the statue of his fore-father, in the cold and wet Cousland crypt - and he was drenched. Salt-water ran down his face, dripping heavily from his black curls. Big clear droplets caressed his temples, his cheeks, his lips, and carried on their journey to espouse the line of his jaw, before weeping from his chin into the thick Highever weave of his clothes. When he opened his mouth to speak, a clear stream of water fell from his tongue, and it kept running, never-stopping, as he softly formed the words._

_“Alistair,” the Hero murmured, “Brother.”_

_Slowly, he raised his crowned head to face him, and Alistair could see them, then: his drowned eyes. Those two grey-green disks, spark-less, as flat and dull as old silver coins... They stared at him, like they had on that accursed day, on top of Fort Drakon, and fear gripped Alistair's insides so hard he could barely stand._

_“It's time,” the dead man said again, and more sea-water poured along with each of his words, “Can't you feel it?”_

_The blank eyes blinked slowly. Even the long black eyelashes framing them were wet. When he spoke again, Aedan's voice was whisper soft, but the thousand notes starting to soar around him and Alistair weren't enough to drown the sound of it down. The water running from his mouth had started turning red, and it coated his chin in a light crimson sheen, as he asked:_

_“Can't you hear the song?”_

 

 

Alistair shot awake gasping, with fire burning in his chest, and the Calling wailing loudly in his ear. 

He couldn't repress a shaky moan, as he sat up. Curling forward, he buried his face in both his hands and tried as best he could to catch his breath, and settle his thundering heart. Icy nightmare sweat had glued his shirt to his back, and Alistair shivered in the cold night air, swallowing hard to try and free his throat from the strangling hold of fear.

“Bad dream?”

The Apostate's voice startled him so hard, Alistair all but jumped in place. A bitter taste of shame filled his mouth, and he angrily wiped his wet face, not looking up. 

“I'm fine,” he barked back, but his voice came out infuriatingly hoarse, and so Alistair cleared his throat before trying again, more successfully, this time: “It's nothing.”

Stupid. How could he forget where he was, and who he was with?

His surroundings were slowly coming back to him: the tall grass he had been laying on, the black sky above his head, the ambient darkness his eyes took a few instants to settle back to. He couldn't see the Apostate, he _refused_ to look his way, but he could still guess the shape of his sitting silhouette in the periphery of his vision, somewhere to his right, and it was already more than enough.

Alistair got up. Too fast, judging by the way his joints made him pay for it, but there was no way he could stay seated there even one more second.

“Where are you going?” the mage had the audacity to ask, as Alistair started walking off.

“To take a leak, Maker,” he angrily snapped back in what he hoped was a silencing tone, and oh, no, really? 

He was limping, he realized. And not just a little, no sir: the full thing was on display, like when he was ten whole years younger, roaming aimless in his room, under Aedan's broken shield. 

Well, great. Peachy, even. That was just what he needed, right then, wasn't it? 

Gritting his teeth, Alistair pushed on, doing his best to ignore his stiff thigh, and before the Apostate could even _try_ to say something again, he added:

“Why? Do you care to join in?”

And if the man had anything to answer to that, Alistair would be none the wiser, because limp and all, he was already too far to hear it. He kept walking without a clear direction in mind for a few long moments, and only stopped when he felt he seriously risked tripping over some of the low thorny bushes that littered the ground. The dim light starting to grey the horizon was not enough yet to clearly show him his way, and if he didn't want to twist his ankle or get himself suffering from some other really stupid and unnecessary ailment, he'd better not be too senseless about strutting about like this. In this darkness, he was probably already away from the Apostate's gaze, anyway.

With a long sigh, Alistair raised his face to the deep blue sky. His leg was still throbbing in that absurd way of its, sharp and oddly painless, so hard he could practically feel the imprint of the Archdemon's tail deeply indented in that flesh again, scales and all. To distract himself from the sensation - and also because fuck it, why not, he might as well, since he was there - Alistair went at unlacing his pants, and going at the business of relieving himself. There: that way, he hadn't even lied.

He pulled up with his nose, repressing another shiver. Maker, but it was cold. Humid, really, for the most of it, just like the day before, but even if the real frost hadn't started to settle in this far South yet, summer had most definitively come to a close for Ferelden, that much was clear. Alistair's hair was damp, once again, and so were his clothes: nightmare sweat or not, when condensation rose from the ground over the night like this, it was practically as if it had rained. He couldn't really see the mist hanging over the ground, but he could feel its wet touch on his legs all the way up to his knees, and guess its presence in the distance, in the way the blueing horizon looked blurred and hazed like a line of sand seen from underwater. All Warden blood considered, it would be a wonder if neither him nor the Apostate managed to catch their deaths...

 _“Yeah, that's the expression,”_ Alistair sourly thought.

He had finished up, but even then, he didn't feel like going back to his and Anders' fireless camp. Thinking back to what had just happened was enough to make his stomach churn. 

How humiliating. After all those years of dealing with this sort of occurrences on an all but daily - or well, nightly - basis, one would think Alistair might have learned a trick or two about getting a better hold of himself, whenever it happened. But no, that was too much too ask, apparently. Ever since this Calling had started, the situation on that front had slowly but surely started deteriorating again. Not that Alistair had ever _really_ been free of nightmares, but he thought he had at least been free of _this_...

With another deep sigh, Alistair rubbed hard circles into the stiff muscle of his right thigh, hoping to hurry up its return to normalcy. Stupid body. Honestly, he should give up even trying to make sense of it. It had been ages since he'd had this bad a reaction, so why now? Why like this? The dream wasn't even about the Battle! Breathing in deep, Alistair closed his eyes, rubbing tiredly at his still-heavy lids. 

Who was he kidding? Of course, now. Of course, like this. There was more than enough matter in these last few days to justify that past coming forth again, even _he_ wasn't blind enough not to see it: the Calling by his ear, the Wardens, the fighting, and this sea... 

_His_ sea. 

Alistair opened his eyes. The nature around him was turning into an eerie painting of buzzing blue twilight, framed by stark black shadows of bushes and small trees, but he had trouble focusing his gaze on it. The images of his nightmare felt ready to flood his mind again, reawakened by his ruminations, and Alistair knew he'd do best to push them away immediately, if he ever wanted his leg to go back to normal. Reluctantly, he resigned himself to turning back, then, despite the embarrassment. 

After all, the Apostate surely knew a thing or two about nightmares as well, Alistair was certain. He had to, right? Given the Taint, and... _the rest_.

Not that the thought offered him much consolation. Having anyone witness him like this was already unbearable, so a stranger, not to mention this one in particular, haunted as he may or may not be... It was _less than ideal_ , to really put it mildly. But then again, exactly what was ideal, in this entire blighted situation?

 _“Fucking nothing, here's what,”_ Alistair glumly answered himself.

Well, he still thought, taking in a deep, steadying breath, and firmly ignoring the flash of dull green eyes he saw staring at him from a distance, at least he had slept. Yes, everything considered, he had managed to get a few good hours of it in, this time, and he could feel the difference it made, as he pulled his arms behind his back, stretching his shoulders and spine and feeling them respond without too much of a strain. He hurt all over, from all the fighting he had done, but the more he moved, the fainter it felt, and the Calling was receding back to its normal – if that could be called normal – subdued state. He was far from optimal conditions, sure, but honestly, when was one ever? 

He could walk, and he could fight, and if Alistair's life had taught him one thing, it was that in times like these, that was all that mattered. 

By the time he was back to camp, the sky was slightly lighter, and his limp was gone. The Apostate was up as well, and he had the sense not to ask any more stupid questions, this time. Good. He seemed ready to leave, too, standing motionless with his new staff in hand, looking at the horizon opposite to where the sun was rising with a closed-off expression; towards Amaranthine, Alistair knew. Twice as good: they didn't have to waste any more time waiting around.

“Shall we?” Alistair asked, without feeling the need for a prelude, and the Apostate nodded slowly.

He didn't move, though, waiting instead for Alistair to recover what little he had left in the grass, like the dagger, and his hood. Only when he was done equipping, and had finally caught up with him, did the Apostate turn around, and extend an open hand his way. 

“Breakfast?” he offered.

There were a few blackberries, in the crook of his palm, round and shiny and jet black in the blue light of dawn. As Alistair failed to answer, Anders added, certainly sensing his reluctance:

“They're fairly ripe.”

Alistair looked at the berries, then back up at the mage, although it was dark enough still that he couldn't properly read the man's features. His first instinct was to refuse, and quite bitingly so, at that – accepting food straight from a hand wet with the blood of hundreds, how pleasant – but this time, Alistair forced himself to hold back on his hostility.

 _“Remember what you said yesterday,”_ he admonished himself, _“No more of this. You can't afford it, and it will just end up getting the two of you killed.”_

Yes, the day before had showed them as much: him and the Apostate were _leagues_ past the luxury of getting on each other's nerves. No matter how little he wanted to, Alistair had to be reasonable – for once – and bloody act like it: at least for the duration of their journey back to the Keep, he had to rein in his antagonistic impulses, and stop lashing out at the man at every turn. It wasn't going to be easy, but Maker, Alistair had managed to keep his ugly temper somewhat in check for the best of the last eight years of his life, so he bloody well would repeat the feat now. What could he even have hoped to accomplish, anyway? It wasn't like he could get the Apostate to explain himself and his heinous acts by way of simply asking. It wasn't like he should even _want_ to try. Of all the pointless endeavours he could waste his time on...

The man wasn't moving and his presence right in front of him was making Alistair's skin crawl with memories of violence, but he didn't let it show, this time, because it was useless, and he was tired, and had he not already found himself saying much more than he should have, the day before, as consequence of his short-minded confrontations? If there were any answers to be had, then he'd be getting them at the end of this, anyway, right? 

At the Apostate's trial. 

And right now, much more trivially, Alistair just had to eat. So, with a light nod, he finally answered:

“Sure.”

He held out his hand, and as the Apostate tilted his, the small berries rolled one by one from the crook of his palm onto the King's. Wiping the wine-red stain left on his fingers against the side of his pants, the mage then simply turned around, and started walking without another word. Alistair followed him, but not before taking a second to inhale another long, steadying breath, gaze once again lost to the misty horizon, holding those few berries in the crook of his hand and feeling them weight there.

“Have you had enough?” he forced himself to ask the Apostate, as he finally fell in behind him.

The question came out more than a little gruff, but Alistair had every right to make sure: he still remembered how scarily thin the mage had looked once out of those torn clothes, the day before on that cold beach. Like a man barely fed, to be honest, with bone standing out from under milky white, freckled skin all over his gaunt body. Fugitive life would do that to someone, Alistair guessed, and he wouldn't have dwelt on it for even a second, any other time. But now wasn't any other time, no, now was the sort of time when the last thing he needed was the Apostate fainting in the middle of combat, if there was more of that to be had. And since he looked like he was barely a gust of wind short of doing just that, with the little meat he had on his bones, then yes, it was of Alistair's business to know if he had eaten sufficiently. Any objections to that? 

But Anders just shrugged, barely throwing Alistair a look over his shoulder, and simply answering:

“I have.”

He looked very tired still, but less dizzy than the day before: apparently he too had managed to find some nightly rest, this time around, and maybe some of his power as well was restored. That was good enough for Alistair, but after a moment of silence, the Apostate still added:

“We can always pick more: there's plenty of bramble to go around.”

As if to underline his point, a big thorny bed of the weed laid right in their path, and the Apostate had to work it open with the butt of his staff to cross it, shaking water off its thorny strands and the dozen little black berries hanging from them.

“We're lucky it's the season,” the mage noted, and that _really_ wasn't the word Alistair would have chosen to describe what they were, but at least on that regard, it was true: the weather wasn't ideal, and there was way less daylight to make use of than what he would have wished for, but the time of year they were in at least had the benefit of being plentiful, when it came to gathering resources. 

They probably wouldn't have trouble finding enough to feed themselves with, especially now that they had ventured further in-land, where the vegetation was taller and more varied than on the naked cliff-side they came from. Finally chewing on his berries – they were tarter than they were sweet, but not unpleasantly so – Alistair focused on where he was stepping and said nothing more.

The rising dawn soon made the task easy enough that he could look around more freely, though. The heavy cloud ceiling had lifted and the sky was only partially covered, that morning, revealing big slices of pale blue above their heads. The silver blade of a waning morning moon could sometimes be seen peeking from behind the pinkening edges of a cloud, and after a while, the sun broke over the horizon behind them. Alistair felt its shy caress at the back of his neck, ever-so-lightly warming his skin. That, on top of his walking, and the new - albeit light - clothes on his back, finished pushing the remainder of cold away for good. Bless how far North they were, truly: if this were the southern coast, they'd have been frozen to death already.

He could see the fog clearly, now, casting its ghostly haze over the wild country-side. Really, Alistair thought, trailing his gaze over the mellow line of the misty horizon, the landscape here was much more suited to keep them protected from both the wind and ill-intentioned eyes of their pursuers than the mossy rocks and thick grass off the cliff-side had been. He should have thought about this way before, but in his hurry to go back to the Keep, he had underestimated how stupidly obvious their route along the coast would have appeared, to anyone looking for them... That mistake had almost cost them their lives, and Alistair wasn't going to make it again.

With the waves and the sea-birds gone, though, the silence was eerie. Alistair could only hear the brush of the Apostate's footsteps in front of him, on top of his own, and the sudden crackle of twigs in the thorn-bushes around them whenever some animal, alerted to their presence, rushed urgently out of their way. And the Calling, of course, he heard that too. That was a given.

Because there wasn't much else to focus on, Alistair often found his eyes trailing back to the man walking ahead of him. The raising sun's light on the back of the Apostate's head made his long blonde braid reflect almost golden, in places. What an impractical length of hair to fight with, Alistair thought – not for the first time – but he could see how it would help conceal one's identity. With that and the beard, after all, the man had almost fooled even him into thinking he was nothing more than the average vagabond... 

Which of course he was everything but. The hair hadn't seemed to hinder him at all: the mage had more than held his own, on the battlefield. And off of it too, Maker: the strength of that healing, Alistair wasn't sure he'd ever felt anything like it since... Well, since Wynne, although the sensation of Anders' magic had felt entirely different from hers. Where the old woman's touch had been warm, and buzzing, Alistair could almost still feel the cold bite of the Apostate's jolting surge on his skull. 

The warnings had been justified: the man was powerful. He very well ought to be, with all the destruction he had caused. And he hadn't even shown that spirit of his, yet...

Alistair felt a bout of anger flare in him again, and no, dammit. He mustn't think of that side of things. If he did, then he'd find himself recalling the dull stare of the Apostate's unfeeling eyes, the day before, and the fact that he'd been unable to even _say_ he regretted his actions...

The atmosphere had shifted to something heavier, more uncomfortable. Alistair knew he had to keep his mind away from those dangerous thoughts and focus them instead on more pressing matter, lest this got out of hand again, and so he decided to just break the inopportune silence in favour of some actually productive questions.

“How well do you know the Commander?” he asked.

It was as good a place to start as any. His sudden inquiry seemed to surprise the Apostate, because he slowed down a little, and threw him another long, wary look over his shoulder.

“I'm sorry?” he asked back, and he had heard him full well, Alistair knew, but since he was the one who had started it, he was ready to conceive he could make an effort to clarify.

“Warden-Commander Lellac,” Alistair specified, keeping his voice neutral, “You've spent... what, a year under her lead, in Vigil's Keep?”

The mage's gaze narrowed to an uncertain squint. He was still very much suspicious of Alistair's intentions, and it showed. After a short moment of apparent hesitation, he spoke again.

“Something like that,” he said, before inevitably adding: “Why do you ask?”

Alistair shrugged. 

“I was wondering if you knew something that could help us figure out what happened to her,” he honestly answered.

At that, the Apostate actually slowed down a little, and Alistair distinctly heard him sigh. It wasn't an annoyed sigh, though, more like a weary one, and when Alistair got to his level, he could see that the man's eyes were lowered. Alistair couldn't say he liked the thought – matter of fact, he rather loathed it – but it wasn't impossible that the Apostate had had some sort of a more personal knowledge of the Commander, even if it didn't go far beyond the bond of service. However meagre, the man was still Alistair's only source of information regarding the woman, right then. And although he hated the idea of dwelling even further on the Apostate's betrayal of the Order, he needed to get whatever use he could out of the little he could get, to try and find out why anyone would have wanted to get rid of Lellac in the first place. Any inkling of a clue would be more than he actually had, and it wasn't like there was anything more productive he could be doing with his time, anyway.

“Well, I haven't seen her for some nine years, now,” the Apostate finally answered, not really looking Alistair's way, although they were now walking somewhat side to side, “I'm not even sure that any of what I knew back then still applies.”

Alistair waited a moment, because really, was that all the man had of useful to share?

“Surely _you_ had a chance to meet the Commander more than once in the most recent years,” the mage added, pushing a taller shrub branch out of his way with the head of his Tevinter staff, “Plenty more than I have. You must have your own idea of her.”

Again with this, huh? Questioning right back whenever he was asked something... Alistair was starting to almost expect it, by then, and it was just as irritating as ever, but he took it on him to treat the matter reasonably, this time. After all, it must have been odd, even uncomfortable, for the Apostate, to have a complete stranger being so aware of so many details of his life, and not holding back on prodding them open. Of course Alistair was perfectly justified in doing so, but Maker knew he could relate to _that_ wary feeling, at least.

“I did meet her some,” he answered, then, doing his best to keep his tone as matter-of-fact as he could, “But not much. We wrote a while, especially in the period when there was still a considerable amount of Spawn to get rid of, in the Kingdom, and we needed to coordinate our efforts to hunt them down.”

Strange times, those, the thought of which immediately brought back that of Meera and the rest of his guard. Alistair fought the urge to clear his throat, but he still felt his chest tighten.

“But that was a long time ago, now,” he continued, maybe a little too eagerly, “Ever since, there hasn't been reason for us to meet. Nor did she request it.”

Even if this brought him nothing, then at least Alistair would know he had tried. Who knew: reminiscing about the Orlesian Warden's stern attitude may even help him remember something useful, himself. For now, mentioning those post-Blight campaigns and the awful period of his life they were linked to had only served to bring on a multitude of rather unpleasant feelings, but if he could just push those aside, maybe they could get somewhere with this.

“After all,” Alistair continued, managing to sound only mildly put out about it all, instead of... whatever it was he was still feeling about it, even after all these years, “there is only so much the Commander of the Grey can afford to confer with political authorities such as myself. And vice-versa.”

He blinked once or twice, blinded by the reflection of the sun in a particularly dense grapple of water droplets hanging from the crimson leaves of an ash tree shrub in front of him. Upon further inspection, Alistair realized it was a spiderweb. As he passed by it, the water pearls shook and glimmered back at him like a strange white-gold necklace.

“So no, I didn't see much of the Warden-Commander, overall,” he reprised, “Which is a telling sign in and of itself, isn't it? That she upholds the Order's ways in that regard, at least.”

Not to the liking of many among his newly-reformed court, back then. _“You'd think Weisshaupt would show us more gratitude,”_ he still remembered them saying after every withdrawn - if polite – missive from Amaranthine, but they didn't understand, did they? Not many did. Duncan had warned Alistair about it, but it had still managed to come as a surprise exactly how right he'd been. _“The further we keep ourselves, the better we all fare,”_ he'd say. It seemed Commander Lellac would have agreed.

“For the little that I know,” Alistair concluded, “Amaranthine is well-managed, and safe. The Order's ranks are replenished, or well, they appeared to be, before this mess. Overall, the Commander seemed a very Dutiful woman, to me.”

The Apostate didn't answer right away. He silently walked for another few moments, eyes focused to where he was stepping in the knee-length, damp bushes.

“She was,” he finally said.

His voice had rung almost... soft. Alistair didn't know what that made him feel, but before he could decide, the mage sighed again, and went on.

“She still is, I'm sure,” the Apostate said, raising his gaze to frown at the now-sunny sky.

He breathed in a big breath of morning air, before pursuing, in a much more level tone: 

“Léonie was very young when she Joined. She spoke the oath in Montsimmard, under Warden-Commander Fontaine, who at the time had just succeeded to Commander Genevieve.”

There it was. That last name reminded Alistair of Duncan again, but the fact that Anders had finally felt it opportune to start spinning his own tale was satisfaction enough to keep the thought at bay, and he simply nodded.

“From what she told me,” the Apostate continued, “she had always harboured a great admiration for the Wardens. She had this book, she said. Or well, the family her parents served must have had. _“The most gallant pictures,”_ she said it contained. She'd read it and then lift her gaze from its pages to the walls of Fort Essor, and dream of griffon-riding.”

At that, the man smiled. It was just a small, soft thing, and it was gone very soon, but Alistair hadn't missed it. He wasn't sure what to make of it, but he didn't have time to make up his mind, because the Apostate went on. 

“The awakening of her magic only comforted her in that ambition,” he said, and this time, a frown settled on his brow, as he spoke, “Like a proof of sorts. She walked herself to the White Spire, barely more than a child, and demanded to undergo her Harrowing right away, so that she could Join.”

He shook his head, eyes to the ground again. Alistair wasn't sure he was entirely at ease with the path the conversation was taking, but his concern proved useless, because the Apostate seemingly thought the same, and chose to correct the topic's worrisome course all by himself.

“Her devotion to the Order was complete,” the man said, voice lower, but just as firm as before, as if he hadn't just mentioned the name of a place that did not stand anymore by, some might argue, his own direct doing, “She's also an accomplished Warden scholar. Fearsome fighter, too. It's no wonder she was chosen to fill in the Fereldan Commander's seat.”

_Duncan's seat._

“You were close,” Alistair just said.

An observation, more than a question, and the Apostate simply nodded.

“Yes, I suppose we were,” he murmured, “She saved my life. Tried to make a proper Warden out of me.”

 _“And how you've repaid her efforts,”_ Alistair thought.

He said nothing of it aloud, but the Apostate still threw him a tired glance, as if he'd somehow read his mind. 

“I know,” he sighed, “ _“For all the good it's done her,”_ right?”

Alistair wasn't going to say “no” to something that so eerily mirrored what had crossed his own mind, but he wasn't going to say anything affirmative either, and so he opted for just keeping the matter strictly to the point at hand.

“So you don't know why anyone would target her?” he asked, “If she was even the one targeted at all in the first place, that is.”

Anders squinted pensively at the golden clouds in front of them.

“Like I said, it's been a long time,” he murmured.

His gaze stuck to a line of taller trees, slightly right off their course, and his voice was firm and louder again, as he added:

“But the Commander is a rather uncompromising woman. As I'm sure you know, she's proven herself quite the harsh negotiator, with both her allies, and her enemies. She made herself a few of those, back then, as a consequence of it.” 

He dipped his head back down, with a powerless shrug.

“I don't know,” Anders sighed, “Whatever local gripes she could have gathered over the years are nowhere near the scope of what we're seeing now. I don't see what the Elder One or his people might have wanted with her. Alive or...”

He let that sentence trail off into silence. Alistair himself was at a loss for answers, but even if there was no way to know what fate had incurred the Commander, all signs seemed to point towards something rather sinister. Maybe to break the grim silence that had formed, the Apostate spoke up again.

“You don't ask me if I know the Constable?” he questioned, and Alistair shook his head.

“I know you don't,” he said, “She entered her functions sometime in 9:36, and you were in Kirkwall, at the time.”

He threw the man a furtive glance, but regretted it: that dull look was back in his eyes, and it made Alistair's skin crawl with a long shiver of unease.

“So if you've met her since,” he pushed on, nonetheless, tearing his gaze from the criminal and turning it somewhere safer, like on the golden-lit trees he could see ahead of him, “You've done a bad job of getting on her good side, because she sure as the Void didn't act like your friend.”

The Apostate let out a terse sound, that could almost have been some sort of a laugh.

“You _do_ keep aware, for someone who “can't afford to confer” with the Order,” he stated, tone only half-sarcastic.

Alistair cocked his head to the side, and answered, in a much more matter-of-fact way:

“”Keeping aware” constitutes a great deal of my duties on many fronts, believe it or not.”

Sure, the Grey Wardens and him didn't maintain much contact, but that didn't mean he couldn't keep his own oversight on their activities. The naming of a Constable to the Warden-Commander was news big enough, for instance, that it would reach even him.

After all, he had his sources on the inside.

“What kind of woman is Maeva, then?” the Apostate asked, and Alistair all but scoffed.

“The traitor kind,” he griped.

He could feel the mage's eyes on him again, though, and consented to his silent request to elaborate.

“I don't know,” Alistair admitted, “Like I said, I don't frequent the Keep much. I knew about her existence, but that's pretty much it. All I've learned since is that she's lied to us, and led us to be picked like ripe fruit by these Venatori sort. So, not much.”

A long silence followed, during which they both seemed to mull all that over. But when the Apostate spoke again, it was to ask a whole other question, one Alistair hadn't expected in the slightest.

“Was it Oghren that kept you informed?” Anders asked, and Alistair couldn't help but to look at the man, slightly taken aback.

He held that amber gaze. Right, of course: the Apostate knew the dwarf as well. Oghren had even mentioned the fact to him once, soon after Kirkwall, albeit only in half-words.

 _“It's not as if we hadn't seen this sodding mess coming,”_ he had written, in one of his so-rare, parsimonious missives, scribbled unceremoniously on a crinkled piece of paper in his unexpectedly elegant calligraphy, _“I'm more surprised as to_ who _it came from, than where, but if you ask me, it was bound to happen.”_

“Actually, yes,” Alistair answered, not seeing any reason to lie about it, and maybe, just maybe, because he was a tiny bit curious.

He had no idea what the Apostate was getting at with that, after all. So he was surprised yet again, when after another long silence, the mage looked down and scratched the bridge of his nose, avoiding his gaze with something that felt very close to hesitation.

“Is he... well?” Anders asked, almost tentatively, “Do you know?”

Alistair couldn't trust himself to tell exactly why his first instinct was to defensively deny he knew the answer to that question. As if withholding that information would somehow keep at a distance the very notion that him and the Apostate had anything in common, let alone a _friend?_ Perhaps. Perhaps it was also because the inquiry reminded him how little he did, in fact, know about the well-being of someone he very much considered like a brother-in-arms.

“Last we wrote, he was,” Alistair found himself answering, without really remembering to have taken that decision.

The Apostate looked up at him, and this time, it was the King who caught himself avoiding to return his gaze. This was awkward. He wasn't sure why, but it undeniably was. What did the man even care? Weren't those people he had left behind?

“He told me he was on his way to Weisshaupt, on some assignment,” Alistair continued, already regretting having started on that path, but aware it was too late to step back from it, “It seems that despite his best intentions, he's proven himself reliable enough to start gaining responsibilities inside the Order.” 

“I'm not that surprised,” the Apostate quietly commented.

Neither was Alistair. There was some melancholy in the silence that followed. 

It was uncomfortable.

Alistair looked at the few trees they were getting close to, inspecting them with much more care than what was warranted. It was clear him and the mage were both wondering the same thing: was Oghren hearing his Calling as well? If yes, then how was he dealing with it? The sorrowful melody whispered its distant notes in Alistair's ear, and the fiery red leaves of a lone birch tree amidst the grapple of already-naked ashes rustled softly in the quiet breeze.

What was happening to them all? And, more importantly: could they do anything to stop it? Even if they found a cause for this unnatural Calling... What would happen then? 

The Song wasn't something a Warden could un-hear.

That gloomy thought hung between them as Alistair and the Apostate crossed the tree-line. It was so sparse it couldn't even qualify as a wood, but the air between the trunks felt instantly chillier, even if the sun was only partially blocked by the leave-less branches. The ground was littered with bushes and shrubs almost waist-high, at places, so they progressed a little slower, for a while. They emerged from the undergrowth to realize they were on the crest of a soft hill.

They saw the smoke at the same time. There wasn't much wind, so the slim column rose straight up to the sky, far south from where they were, behind a taller line of trees. 

“A chimney?” the Apostate wondered, leaning on his staff.

“Or a campfire,” Alistair warned.

“Shall we go check?”

The King nodded. They'd have to be careful, but passing out on the chance to find civilisation was something they couldn't afford. They had their answer fast enough: after walking only a few minutes, they caught sight of a roof, peeking from in-between the naked tree-branches. A house.

Alistair breathed in a sigh of relief. Alright, it wasn't a village, but it was already much more than he had wished for. They'd probably manage to get help, there. Some supplies, at least. A rustling sound caught his attention, and when he turned around, Alistair found the Apostate kneeling right beside him, carefully hiding his staff under some bushes.

“What are you doing?” Alistair asked, confused.

This time, the Apostate laughed for real, even if it was a short, and somewhat caustic version of the sound.

“Oh, Your Majesty,” the man sighed, sardonic, “I can see you've never walked in a stranger's land with what is obviously a Mage's staff in hand. Not to mention, in the current climate...”

He got up, patting his knees to shake off the wet leaves stuck there.

“Why do you think I'd fashioned mine after a walking stick?” he asked, and although Alistair felt like glaring back at his bitter, almost mocking smile, he didn't.

After all, he wasn't wrong.

“What if you need it?” he asked instead, and the Apostate just shrugged.

“Then I suppose I'll run back here,” he said.

Alistair let out a sound that meant “whatever,” and didn't wait any longer to start making his way towards the house. He certainly wasn't going to complain about having the Apostate even just slightly less dangerous than he could be. As far as Alistair was concerned, the less armed the man in the presence of civilians, the better. Just because the mage was proving somewhat cooperative, it didn't mean Alistair should lower his guard. 

 

 

 


End file.
